Going Home
by TheOtherNessie
Summary: Peaches and Julian are finally married and heading out to roam. Leaving the herd is supposed to be an adventure just for them, but they quickly begin to rethink what, exactly, being away from home can mean. Meanwhile, the herd must deal with an unexpected guest and problems that have been on hold for too long. Sometimes keeping secrets isn't the best policy.
1. Chapter 1

A/N (Updated January 2019)

Hello!

I want to include a quick note about the timeline for this story. I've got some rather large changes to canon spread throughout, so you'll notice that there are some characters missing. Don't worry, we'll get to that…

But to get started, we're picking up right where _Collision Course_ ends, but the central conflict (the meteor plummeting toward Earth) never happened. I really struggled with the meteor plotline, and it would mess up where this story is headed anyway, so I cut it. That means that Peaches and Julian just got hitched, and it's time to go roaming!

I do not own _Ice Age_. If I did, movies 2-5 would have turned out _very_ differently.

* * *

It was early when they left.

The sky overhead was still dark, and the horizon was a barely visible sliver of light.

Normally everyone would still have been sleeping, about half of their party snoring away, in the relative safety of the clearing. Their current spot, an open patch within a dense grouping of conifers and saplings, had been their temporary home these last few years. Not that it was much different than all the other places they had turned into a residence and then left.

If she was being honest, it didn't feel entirely strange for Peaches to stand, staring up at the view she'd fallen asleep to every night, and get ready for departure. They'd been through this so many times.

On these days Mom was usually up first. She'd stretch her trunk to the sky, feeling the breeze, and then go off in search of breakfast for herself and the smaller herbivores still sleeping. Then it would be Dad, rolling this way and that so that slight tremors would rock her awake if she wasn't already. Then he was up too and headed to get a drink. By the time Mom was back with leaves and dandelions wrapped in a bundle, Dad had returned too, this time growing annoyed with the sight that greeted him. While Mom got Uncle Crash and Uncle Eddie up, coaxing them down first with gentle nudges followed inevitably by threats, Dad would be muttering about Uncle Sid and stomping around trying to get him up too.

He'd never actually shaken the sloth awake, but there had been a few times the smaller mammal had awoken to the bigger one standing directly over him, a hair's breadth away. He had the best reactions.

Eventually they'd be on the trail – late, like always – and off to a new place. Family road trips always began this way.

But not this time.

This time the sky still looked purple. The sun wasn't even over the horizon yet, and today, of all mornings, it actually seemed chilly.

Peaches heard the trees moving and looked over as Uncle Crash catapulted into the clearing, easily hitting the ground running. "Manny and Ellie cornered Julian by the river, and Manny started asking a bunch of questions and then got really quiet. Julian's freaking out. Come on!"

Before she could even begin to ask for details, he'd turned and took off back into the trees. She could hear branches scrambling as he went and laughter at the fact there was trouble afoot.

Peaches ran after him, imagining her father persuading Julian that today wasn't a good day to leave, or the next day, or the next…

The three of them were standing by the river as Peaches burst from the dense pocket of trees. What little light had made it over the skyline in the last few minutes was tipping their fur in gold, a fresh start, goodwill for their journey.

"We're leaving _today_ ," Peaches said before anyone else could start trying to say otherwise. She stepped purposefully toward them. Uncle Crash had situated himself on Mom's shoulders.

"Of course you are." Dad was looking her over like he wasn't sure what she was talking about, and she might have believed him if Uncle Eddie hadn't been standing behind one of his feet, looking between Peaches and him with a concerned expression.

"So why are you bothering my husband?"

Just behind him, Julian was gazing around them in a totally obvious manner so as to diffuse tension, and despite the surge of annoyance that came with the knowledge that she was going to have to argue her way into this conversation, a deep well of affection opened at the sight of her new husband struggling to balance his loyalty to her and to her parents.

"No one's bothering anyone…"

Mom smiled at her, clearly not about to rehash whatever it was they'd been talking about. "We were just double checking your plans."

Dad snorted. "What little of them you have-"

Julian bounced over to her and wrapped his trunk around hers. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes. I am." Peaches glanced at Dad. He was looking particularly taxed beyond his usual resting angry face. Mom's eyes were dim and glistened at the bottom a little, and she looked back at Julian's huge grin to remind herself that this was the right decision.

She'd foolishly thought before the wedding that the tears would be over and done with, but if she was honest, now seemed more like the time to cry than ever.

Sure, she'd been a little apprehensive in the last few days about undertaking such a long trek, but she'd also been raised to believe that she could do anything she put her mind to. After Julian had unthinkingly mentioned roaming one day, about halfway into their relationship, Peaches had told herself she was going to seize that right and go live her life. Now that it was finally time to put all of this into action and her parents weren't trying to stop them last minute, they needed to be heading out. Julian knew a place farther on, but it would take the whole day to get there. Roaming or not, getting somewhere safe by nightfall was a must.

"Mom, Dad…"

"You be careful," Dad said then, and his trunk wound around her neck and shoulders, pulling her into a hug like he had since she was a baby.

"Of course Dad," she whined, pretending like this was no big deal. For his sake. But she hugged him back for a long time.

Then it was Mom's turn, and she wrapped Peaches into a warm hug.

Then Peaches watched in delight as her parents preceded to hug Julian as well. At least, in their own ways. Mom's hug was genuine and she patted him on the head with her trunk, telling her new son to be safe. Dad's was gruffer, an objection to being pushed around by Julian's over-dramatic embrace and a grudging pat-pat-pat back on Julian's shoulder.

The possums were next, and finally, Uncle Sid. He'd wandered over during Mom's hug, and had clearly just woken up. For once, when Peaches looked into those small eyes, there was an uncharacteristic gravity there. He was sad, just like all of them, but he didn't cry like she'd been assuming. Instead, he hugged them, told them to be careful, and then silently retreated to stand by Dad.

It was unlike anything Peaches had ever seen from him before, and as Julian and she turned to leave, turning back to wave once, a strong sense of foreboding swept through her.

Her silly, crazy, immature uncle that Dad was always complaining about and picking on. Dramatic, sometimes unthinking, a sweetheart to his core. Peaches may have gotten her fearless side from Mom's brothers, but Uncle Sid taught her how to trust and love those around her unconditionally. They'd had fun together over the years, so much fun.

And here he was, frowning as they walked away, like he thought he'd never see them again.

Peaches turned back around and followed Julian into the underbrush.

Minutes passed, they walked on, on, on, to the edge of their small territory in this tiny community. Then they were walking past other animals' areas, and she thought of Louis, of how much fun they used to have, and was sad again.

It wasn't until they'd crossed the outer border between their home and the land of the rest of the continent that Peaches realized Julian knew she was upset. In fact, they'd passed four whole cocoons, and he hadn't stopped to examine a single one of them. He also hadn't remarked on how that one rock totally looked like a mud pie, and she was pretty sure he'd been about ready to bolt off the trail at one point for berries but had refrained.

As they began walking deeper into the outer sprays of the massive forest that stretched around them, Peaches took his trunk in hers and smiled. He grinned back, gently butting her head with his, and into the trees they went.

* * *

Thanks so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

From here onward we're going to be getting into some themes of loss, death, and abandonment. Please read at your discretion.

* * *

"So what was the problem?" Peaches asked later on that day.

"What problem?" Julian asked, his focus coming back to her from where it seemed to have been wandering between a flock of birds in the sky, the willow trees they were walking beneath, and a song hummed under his breath.

"Earlier with my parents. Uncle Crash said they were bothering you, and then they acted like nothing was wrong when I came. What did they ask you?"

"Oh, that." Julian smiled, flowing into their conversation easily and shrugging. "They just wanted to remind me to watch out for you. And then they asked about the route. I tried to explain it to them, and for a couple of minutes, Manny didn't say anything. I was starting to wonder if they were going to say no because they've been worried that we don't have enough of a plan in place. But then he was fine with it all of a sudden."

"That's weird." Peaches blinked at the barely-noticeable path in front of them. She tried to think of anything, anywhere, that would cause Dad to react that way. The only place that came to mind was back where his first family had been killed by humans, but that would take months to reach. Besides, Julian knew the story as well as her, and they weren't about to go waltzing back there. "I guess they would have said something if they weren't okay with it."

"Yeah, which is probably a good thing. I don't exactly have a backup plan."

"You never do." She laughed at him, running her trunk through some willow strands, enjoying seeing this part of the continent for the very first time.

"If I did, I wouldn't have met you." Julian smiled quietly, unintentionally contemplative.

Maybe Dad's strange mood swing wasn't such a big deal. If it hadn't stopped them, it probably didn't matter why he was acting weird.

"That was the luckiest day of my life." She bumped into him gently, beginning their usual game.

Julian walked into her shoulder in response. "I'm just glad you wanted to do this with me. Not everyone wants to move around so much…ooh, look a cloud shaped like rabbit!"

"I needed something different in my life. I needed someone who wasn't so…well, concerned." She nudged him back. It drove Dad nuts when they walked like this, swelling toward and away from each other lazily. A small part of her had loved it all the more just for that reason.

Julian went from staring at the sky to looking back at her. "I'm excited to do this with you."

"Me too."

000

Manny couldn't believe how lucky they'd gotten.

With free reign and the intent to roam, the kids could have chosen to go anywhere. Including up to the North. In fact, for the last couple of nights, he'd lain awake, certain that they would be heading to the one place he never wanted to visit again.

Instead, it was east. And he'd fumbled to voice his approval quickly enough.

Now he just hoped they'd be safe. Peaches was a tough little kid who'd grown into an equally assured young woman. And Julian…he could probably get by on his personality. Whatever brute strength he did possess he wouldn't use, that was for sure.

Now they were at breakfast, snatching leaves from the tops of the trees. The upper canopy was slowly receding to their appetites, and the midmorning sun added a little warmth to the frosty air.

"Can we _please goooo_!" Eddie whined from somewhere up on his wife's tusks.

"It's too cold today."

Manny tried not to groan as the twins did laps over Ellie's shoulders and haunches, complaining.

 _It's too cold today_. They'd been repeating that to the possums all morning. Now was not the time for a day trip to the waterfall anyway. They needed to stick around for a while in case the kids needed to come back. Then they could begin to make a new routine.

They had some adjusting to do now, but they'd pull through. Their herd was nothing if not resilient.

At least Sid had ditched whatever mood he'd been in yesterday. And while a part of Manny wondered if he knew what it was about, he couldn't bring himself to ask. It had been years anyway, and it wasn't like it would ever come up again. Besides, he knew his best friend. If the sloth wanted to talk, they'd talk.

And Sid was currently chattering away about trying to get back together with Francine. It didn't sound like it was going to work out, though, and eventually the possums took to asking him sarcastic questions about their relationship and an argument started to bubble between the three of them.

Yes, they'd be okay.

He glanced at Ellie, oblivious, eating her breakfast. Their meeting still seemed slightly unreal with her dropping from the trees, swinging precariously by her tail and asserting good-naturedly that she knew _everyone falls out of the tree every now and again – they just don't admit it!_ And he'd stared at her, trying to process that a mammoth of all mammals had just dropped out of the tree in front of him, trying to understand her talking about her brothers while climbing yet _another_ tree before he even knew what she was doing, trying to ignore how his brain was telling him that she seemed kind and personable. She was…funny. And not in the desperate, half-accidental way that Sid was funny.

The two of them had been traveling for almost a year when Ellie and her brothers came crashing into their lives. Up to that point they'd been slowly following the migration until one day it stopped, settling in the South, the snowstorms dropping in frequency and vegetation surviving just enough to support the plethora of new inhabitants. At that point, the snow had stopped piling up but also wasn't melting. They lived in a world of cold. Ellie's presence had coincided with a warm spell that hadn't stuck.

But their herd's three new members had.

 _"You think and you worry and where does it get you! Do you_ _ever_ _stop doing either of those things? Wait, don't answer, I already know that's a 'no.'"_ Manny could still hear his best friend's voice, from all those years ago. They'd grown up together and he was always teasing Manfred for being uptight. He'd always been there for him.

Manny had gone to him when he'd realized he was falling in love. The female that had made his thinking go wild had also made him more cautious. She was…everything. He'd been stunned. That love, that warmth, had set the tone for their entire life together. It was what stung him the most when it all got ripped away. He missed the love and security second only to his wife and child themselves. He missed the parts of himself that felt so full whenever they were around.

"Manny wait, please! You don't have to leave…just stay here with us. Stay, please! You're going to get yourself killed! Manny, please!"

The shouting to return to his friend's protection and care hadn't affected him at the time. What was a friend's feelings to a lost mate and child? It had been easy to walk away. Easy to go against the grain. Easy to let his cynical side hijack everything else.

Ellie, however, wanted to know.

Manny had sensed her suspicion after she and the boys had joined them. It wasn't long before he was tentatively dropping hints. One by one like following a trail, and she'd waited until he'd been ready to talk about it holistically. Had held him while he told the story so that he would know that she was trying to understand.

In fact, once he'd gotten the story out the first time, his former life swiftly became an open topic between them. Eventually he talked about it with Sid and the twins. Sid had already known, of course, but Manny knew he hadn't done a very good job of telling him the first time. Neither of them had dug too deeply into the emotional side of things after what they'd already been through. The twins had been remarkably sensitive about it, too. And Manny was beyond impressed.

It felt good in a way he'd thought impossible when all of his buddies were trying to cheer him up. He'd found others he could trust and talk to again. The tone of their herd had changed with his story. It felt like home after that.

"So we're going tomorrow, right?" Crash was peering at Ellie and trying to get an answer from her.

Her expression remained cool, and they waited the other out, until Manny spoke up. "We'll see."

"I thought we had to be consistent with them?" Ellie smiled, her favorite Manny-ism to repeat back to him.

He smirked at her. "A little fun now and then can't hurt."

"Are you okay?" She grinned teasingly as Crash ran off to rejoin Eddie as he was attempting to completely cover Sid in mud. Not that the sloth wouldn't just enjoy that anyway.

"Just fine." Manny went over and wrapped his trunk around hers. "This is great."

"Breakfast or that mud fight we're going to have to clean up?"

They watched the three boys rolling around and batting at each other for a few moments in silence. The sun was gliding into its midday slot above them, and the whole area glowed where it reflected off the snow and the trampled open patches of bare ground. It warmed Manny's back, and he sighed. "All of it. Us."

000

Julian's spot was a small hovel, well hidden, in a large valley farther than Peaches had ever been inland. Having lived most of her life on the coasts (and apparently the earliest days of it underground among dinosaurs), she was fascinated by how long the land under their feet could go on.

In fact, her legs ached. All day maneuvering through green and wooded landscapes, realizing, slowly and with a growing wonderment, that the mammoth up ahead of her or beside her or running circles around her, was the one she'd be spending the rest of her life with.

They'd spent time together leading up to the wedding. But never like this, all alone, just the two of them, for hours and hours and hours on end. And Peaches loved it with all her heart.

Seeing him so happy and running wild, knowing that he was going to come back and point something out to her or ask her how she was doing or suggest that they stop and watch the sun set for a while, she loved him. She knew that she loved him right then and there. Not at home in the safety of her parent's herd, not on their wedding day, not even that late night that they'd stayed up stargazing as two nervous strangers.

When he motioned her onward, Peaches happily followed, letting him bounce off, leading the way.

And when he showed her the little cave, barely big enough for the two of them, she smiled and let him show her its limited accommodations.

* * *

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

...aaaaaaannnnndddd I knew this would happen. It's been a few months, hasn't it?

I'm not good at writing in installments, and it's been much easier to work on other projects that I can endlessly rewrite and re-imagine without have to post anywhere in a timely manner. I'm going to try and get myself moving on this story, but I'm not sure how successful I'll be.

If you're still reading, thank you!

* * *

"You keep doing this! We don't need to stop _early_. I'm _fine_!" It was their first fight, and Peaches was yelling so loud she could have sworn the skinny evergreens around them were shaking with her emotions.

"I'm just trying to help…" Julian was scrambling to keep up, and the frown on his face was only growing deeper.

"I don't need you to tell me what to do!"

A few weeks' worth away from home, and here they were in the middle of a random path with a brown and green valley on one side and a sparse forest behind them. The second mountain range they'd seen was to their left, massive against the horizon.

"I'm not telling you what to do, Peaches. I just know that sometimes you don't like to include me on what you're thinking. I want to make sure that neither of us gets too tired or push ourselves too hard. We still have a long-"

"Don't say it." Peaches shook her head.

"-way to go, and we need to stay healthy."

"We don't have a _destination_."

"Well, that's not exactly true." And here they went. She watched Julian wag his head a little in his way of showing affable disagreement. "We'll know when it's time to stop."

They had barely gotten into arguments while dating, and the explosion of realizing that the past two weeks of conversations and micro adventures and little annoyances were all that was waiting for them for miles ahead had suddenly dropped on Peaches like a surprise thunderstorm. The clouds cracked apart, and all the things that they'd been carefully tolerating were suddenly unbearable.

Peaches heard herself saying words that she hoped would make Julian upset because she was getting tired of him reassuring her that he was the only one of the two of them who really knew where he was going. As if she wasn't capable of telling when a cliff face, now a few miles back, looked unsafe or that they shouldn't cross a river on ice so thin they could see fish swimming underneath.

She wasn't used to feeling stupid, and there was something about her new husband's uncanny ability to try and take care of her when she least wanted it that she just couldn't stand. So what if he had a knowledge base that she didn't? She could _learn_ , couldn't she?

Meanwhile, Julian was obviously struggling to keep his cool, and while he had yet to raise his voice, the carefree undercurrents that always characterized his tone were gone. He was forcibly patient, almost patronizing. And the fact that he wouldn't just yell the way that she was made her feel even worse.

Caught between wanting to really tell him off for his attitude and feeling guilty for what she was sure were over-the-top reactions, Peaches took a few steps backward. "I need some air."

"So you're going to walk away?"

"I'm not going to get myself lost if that's what you're thinking." She snapped.

It wasn't what Julian was thinking. He just didn't want to see her walk off without him because he loved her. Even at the height of their argument, he'd rather trail after her than have them be separated for even the small amount of time she'd need to cool down. It upset him to not be together. But right now Peaches didn't care. Right now she was channeling the fights that her parents would occasionally have when she was younger. Dad, a consistent hothead, was no match for Mom when she finally got angry enough to really _argue_ with him.

Peaches felt like both of them, the part of her that had been passively angry for a few days was finally colliding with what she was quickly learning were her main tics. Being taken care of. Not being listened to. Close proximity without the ability or cause to finally snap. Knowing she was being ridiculous and not being able to stop herself. Wishing she could be less like her dad and more like her husband.

Maybe this was more about her than it was about Julian. And with that thought, she turned and stormed off in an unnecessary way that seemed a fitting end to this reckless argument.

Exploring, roaming, seemed to be an acquired taste the longer she spent doing it. The original excitement had taken awhile to wear off, but it had more or less left them now.

Now they were just walking to nowhere, and she was slowly realizing that maybe this whole adventure thing was a lot more about them than it was about going somewhere new. Even after a couple of weeks of walking, the changes in the land weren't enough to really replace the snowy, dusty ground that seemed to never end.

In fact, the stunning landforms they did encounter – large lakes and waterfalls frozen solid, marshes that were so humid her fur was matted down from the water in the air by the time they came out the other side, and mountains that she liked to watch the sunlight and shadows move around – none of it was as eye opening as listening to Julian talk about his adventures. Hearing herself tell him stories about her family. He liked to reminisce about the early parts of their relationship and relive the magic of falling love.

Peaches liked those times. Although, as she walked farther and farther into the dark pull of the trees, she had to ask herself if this was partly why she was so upset today. In the midst of listing off all the reasons for his happiness, Julian didn't do a very good job of compensating for what was left out. He didn't talk much about his family. They weren't tight knit the way hers was, and Peaches had never really fully appreciated how much being a part of her herd meant to him. She wished she knew how to appreciate her life more, but without him in it, she'd probably have never noticed that beneath her three uncles' shenanigans and her dad's sour attitude was a comfortable sort of perfection. Or that she was lucky.

She didn't know how to reconcile this with the stifling childhood she had battled through. She understood that Dad's first family had died and that he was going to do everything in his power to never let it happen again, but their daily life was uneventful. A few brief stints with other animals that had wished to do them harm was the extent of their wild ride. Everything else was ordinary to the point of insanity.

Peaches had wanted this adventure. And she'd wanted it with Julian. And she didn't know how to ease herself into it without wanting it all. Wanting Julian's entire life inside of her head, a better version of herself than she'd known at home, a place for them to live together.

"What are we doing?" Peaches stopped in a small copse of trees, blue night making them dense shadows. Night had just started to fall when Julian had finally cracked the ice and suggested that maybe they should stop early because Peaches looked tired and he wanted to be considerate because he knew she wasn't used to this like him. She could have killed him.

So they'd started screaming at each other instead. Well, she'd been screaming at least.

Now, the epiphany that roaming was hard on her and that Julian was right, dawned on her. She hadn't been prepared for the toll it was going to take, and she was struggling to make sense of having no plans. She was too much like her dad to just up and go like this. And it wasn't Julian's fault.

She owed him an apology.

From somewhere in the dark, something moved. It was so unexpected and _loud_ that Peaches immediately turned towards it, footsteps much too noisy. She cringed at the sound of her own clumsiness and tried to force her eyes to distinguish safe and dangerous in the dark, shapeless, forest around her. She felt herself bunching up, trying to get smaller in a laughable attempt to make herself less noticeable. And she suddenly felt very, very alone in the darkness.

Waiting, for the sound to come a second time or for something to suddenly come at her out of the quiet nighttime, she briefly considered simply turning tail and running. Uncle Crash and Uncle Eddie would say that was the wise thing to do. They were always running from something, and she was usually the one standing up and standing her ground. Her inability to run being unwise was probably the one thing that Dad and they agreed on.

But right now, in a part of the world that hadn't existed for her that morning, she felt how much she'd never really dealt with situations like this. The only thing that had ever come close (besides bedtime stories of dinosaurs she apparently experienced but couldn't remember) was the time that crazy monkey had come ashore on his iceberg, herding them all off of the ledge they'd been trapped on and announcing with offensive assurance that he was getting revenge on her father.

Revenge for Dad wanting to get back to Mom and her of all things.

So they'd been trapped, and the monkey's first mate, a little rabbit with a knife and overflowing energy, had tied Mom to a boulder while Peaches had been kept close to the captain, awaiting her father and still reeling from the drama of the last few days with Louis and Ethan and her own disappointment in herself.

Now she was focusing her hearing, staring blankly into the shadowed trees and trying to remember every fighting move that Dad had taught her.

And Peaches waited, and waited in the silence until it finally became obvious that nothing was going to happen. And her initial surprise was gone, and it seemed colder than usual tonight, here on the edge of yet another valley at the foot of another mountain. And she was standing in an offshoot of forest by herself because she'd had a fight with her husband.

Whatever it was, was either gone or wasn't a threat. Probably both. Peaches took a moment to collect herself before turning, and walking slowly back to their campsite.

Julian was sleeping off to the side, the rhythm of his breathing a familiar feeling next to her. She sunk down beside him, exhausted. The same silence from the forest lay over their campsite.

"Peaches?"

"Yeah?" She whispered back, immediately feeling guilty for waking him up.

His voice was sleepy. "Are you still mad?"

"No," she answered.

"I'm not mad either," Julian said with a huge yawn.

"Good," Peaches sighed and reached for his trunks with hers. "It's probably time to get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning."

"Mm-hm, love you."

"I love you too."

000

By the dawn, when it was time to get up and move on, Peaches had an apology ready for him in which she did her best to communicate to this excitable, kind, soul that she needed a little more structure; just a little. That she did appreciate him wanting to stop for her, but she also needed to feel like she was calling the shots too. That she wanted him to be himself and that maybe she still had a bit to figure out herself.

Julian just smiled and nodded and asked if she was hungry. So the argument was over just like that, and as they went onward, talking, Peaches found herself happy again.

Everything that had happened before was gone, and with it, the memory of the sound in the dark.

* * *

I've been thinking about this story (in place of actually sitting down to write it), and I think it's turning into more of an exploratory piece. I'm sorry if it feels a little slow right now. There is action and lots of answers coming up, but I'm still in the setup phase because I'm really interested in these characters on an emotional level. I wish the movies would go into that more than they do.

This is going to be a pretty reflection-heavy fic, but there are some major twists and deviations from the films. I'm sure you've spotted some slight differences from canon in this chapter, and there are a bunch more that will begin to snowball (pun intended) as the story goes on.

Next up, we're back with the herd, and Sid is _not_ happy.

Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

I really, really wanted to have this up before we all hit 2019, but that didn't happen.

I meant what I said last chapter about being bad at writing in installments. I'm sorry if you've been waiting and waiting.

Also, I'm a bit scatterbrained, and I realized that I never clarified the timeline here. I have updated the author's note in the first chapter to reflect this, but I'll mention it here for current readers.

In this timeline, Sid's family never caught up with him before the events of _Continental Drift_ , and basically everything having to do with the meteor in _Collision Course_ never happened. Peaches and Julian met, got married with Manny's drama about them roaming, and they headed off on their own where my story picks up. This means no Granny and no Buck at this point. Personally, the whole meteor thing was just not something that I wanted to mess with, and Granny and Buck serve this story better if they come in later.

So I think that's everything for now. Here we go!

* * *

Sometimes, Crash swore that no one besides Peaches and Ellie actually knew which one of them was which.

Sure, the twins often tried to throw people off intentionally, but still, it was a little offensive to be chased blindly through the night by a couple of angry bucks because Eddie had decided it was a good idea to steal all of their berries.

There had also been an incident with a muskox right before that in which their mud balls had quickly turned into flaming mud balls with the help of Sid and his fire-making abilities. That might have also set the deer off as it scared half the animals lounging around the lake and began a small fire in a nearby copse of trees.

So, Crash was running for his life and loving it. It was cold out tonight, and he counted himself lucky that it was dark too as he shifted from the ground, to the tree trunks, to the branches, and back again.

The nighttime was possum time, after all. And at least he didn't have to stick around and watch Sid fumble around trying to fix the mess that Crash was definitely going to tell Manny was his sloth friend's fault.

That muskox had it coming though.

Flying past a cache of acorns in one of the leafless oaks, he paused briefly to stop and chuck them as hard as he could at the bucks before turning and taking off again, snickering at the insults it prompted.

But for all his agility, he wasn't ready for the ice in the trees near the waterfall. In a moment, one paw, and then the other, slipped as he tried to grab onto a branch, and then he was plummeting to the ground.

The hooves, which had always been just a little too close for comfort behind him, stopped. It had been fun to be only a few paces ahead of them only a moment ago.

Now Crash sat up a little from the small bank of snow he'd fallen into, staring at the deer as they glared him down. They were furious, and something told him that their slow approach was just the beginning.

The next time Crash saw his brother, his twin was in for the wrestling match of his life.

"Would it help if I told you it was all Sid's fault?" Crash asked brightly. He was fast, but he wasn't this fast. There was no way he could turn tail and run at this point, and now that he knew the trees were icy, it would slow him down even more. His possum instincts were already screaming at him that he should have been playing dead by now.

"We'll let everyone else take care of him." One of the bucks snarled. And even though these other animals, the herd's neighbors, were generally peaceable, Crash felt a small moment of fear.

They really had done it this time.

Where oh where was Ellie's righteous, and more important, distracting, fury when he needed it?

"Apologize." The other deer commanded. As if that would do anything to calm these two down. Crash had seen enough of their useless bouts against each other to know that they were here to fight.

No way was he going to kowtow to these two morons. " _I'd_ rather be roadkill."

"Oh, you will be." The first deer, Jace, charged at him, hooves coming in fast, and even though Crash leapt as fast as he could to miss them, he still felt one come down on his tail.

He yelped without meaning to, immediately feeling the same fury he felt whenever a larger animal assumed that just because he was small he was going to get out of their way.

And times like this were the reason Eddie and he maintained their mischievous behavior.

"Not if I turn you into it first." With that, Crash doubled back and was clawing at one of Jace's knobby legs before the deer could stop him. Just as Crash figured, Jace lost his balance and fell to the side, stepping off of his tail and giving him more leverage to scamper up onto his back, clawing and shouting insults as he made his way across his pelt.

Neither Crash, nor Eddie, were necessarily violent, but with his tail on fire and all but useless, Crash didn't hesitate when the other deer, his name was Brock or something, began swinging his horns. He jumped onto him next, pulling at his short fur and trying to get the deer to prance himself dizzy.

It was a loud, confusing tangle of horns and hooves and shouting.

It was all going so quickly when there was a too-loud boom and suddenly there was a red streak launching into the sky back the way they'd come. It was followed by a raging cracking that could only mean one thing. And it stopped all three of them in mid-action.

The deer stared at the fireball in stunned silence.

Meanwhile, Crash, who generally assumed that he needed to keep moving if he wanted to stay in one piece, took advantage of the distracted silence, laughed humorlessly, "Heh, how about we just, uh…call it even then?"

And then he was taking off as fast as he could back toward the smoke in the sky.

000

"So this is nice." Manny whispered into the cold air. They'd been silent for a while, filling their eyes with stars and sky and the outline of the other next to them. Being the kind of quiet he was constantly failing to impose on their herd. "Too bad we had to wait until our daughter was married for our next date night."

Ellie giggled next to him, nudging at his right side with hers and reaching over with her trunk to brush at the locks of long fur at the crown of his head. He smiled and turned his head to catch another glimpse of her. He'd forgotten how much he missed hanging out with his mate one on one.

He'd been coming up here for the last week: clearing snow, gathering flowers to string around the canopy, trying to decide the perfect spot for stargazing.

Now, the sky bloomed above them, a million stars tugging at the dark blues and blacks, slipping past all that nothingness with their snow-white glow. They'd been watching this silent snowfall for the last hour, and all the preparation was well worth it.

"Maybe if you would have let Peaches have a little more independence we could have done this more often."

"Or we would have ended up with that Ethan kid as a son-in-law."

"See? I knew you'd come around to Julian. It just took you some time." Ellie snuggled into the pine needles he'd put down as a cushion for them and pulled her trunk back. Her green eyes went back to staring skyward. "Then again, I probably would have been worried if you'd warmed up to him faster. You don't exactly jump into new situations."

Manny just snorted at that. "I can take charge and make decisions when it's necessary."

"Only when someone is literally dying, dear."

There was an immediate heaviness to the following silence, and Manny found himself momentarily upright, planted in two feet of swirling snow as blinding daylight gave him the perfect opportunity to watch blurs of orange toss each other back and forth in the fine powder.

He remembered the terror, the confusion, the deep _regret_ that it had come to this. But most of all, he remembered how much he hated that split second opportunity. The one he hadn't taken, hadn't known to take in the single moment it was presented to him, before others were doing things they couldn't take back. And no matter what Sid wanted him to say, he couldn't take it back for them, either.

"But you have a knack for coming to the rescue at the last minute." Ellie's added, but the words sounded just out of reach. Rehearsed. Like one of his regular nightmares where his first mate was saying the same thing every time, or when he watched himself fighting with Peaches just before Sid and he were swept out into the ocean.

Ellie had pulled him aside as they watched Peaches and Julian heading off on their own adventure, saying, "She was afraid that you wouldn't come back after the ocean swept you out. She didn't want to have your last conversation be a fight."

"I love her, and she knows that. It wouldn't have mattered what happened. There's nothing she can ever say, or do, that would make me so mad at her that we wouldn't have a relationship anymore."

Ellie was smiling at him now the way she was smiling then. And the too-real images in his mind began to fade. Manny forced himself to see only her. "Thanks for the faith in me."

"Well, you mostly deserve it." She teased. And then they were laughing together, and the night righted itself once more until-

"MANNNNYY!"

"I didn't hear that." He said in a measured voice, nodding to himself in a comforting manner. "I am in a dream."

Ellie frowned at him.

" _Manny_!"

"A nightmare, that's it"

"Manny." Ellie scolded, whapping his trunk with hers as Sid came tumbling over himself through the undergrowth, his short arms flailing as they always did when he'd gotten himself into a situation he didn't know how to get back out of.

The two mammoths glanced at each other before climbing leisurely to their feet, regaining balance slowly, and, as Ellie had once said, _throwing their weight around_. He'd never admit it to anyone, but that had been one of the moments he'd started thinking maybe Sid's crass attempts at getting them together had more substance than Manny wanted to admit.

"This is definitely a nightmare." He sighed as Sid stopped before them, panting and doubling over like the whole of the area had been chasing him in a mass mob up to their date-night spot. The spot Manny had been sure to tell him not to come under any circumstances.

"Sid, what's wrong?

Manny turned to his wife. "Don't encourage him."

"Well, uh, I need some help because…well…" The sloth paused, and in the brief silence, Manny could hear faint shouting.

A moment later, both he and Ellie took a few steps forward as they saw the small dots of something glowing down by the lake.

" _Sid_!" Manny thundered.

"And Jace and Brad went after Crash because they thought he was Eddie. They're mad." Sid added, smiling in embarrassment when Manny fixed him with a hassled look.

Ellie spun toward Manny, "You go help him with the fire, I'll get the twins."

They parted ways after that, Manny grabbing Sid and dropping him on his back as he transitioned into a slow gallop towards the lake.

000

"This is all his fault!"

"I told you those possums would be a problem!"

"That stupid sloth destroyed my nest! What am I supposed to now? I have kids to take care of!"

They were well into a heated blaming session now that the flames had been doused. And as Manny stood, with Sid standing as close to him as possible, and listened to their complaints, he tried to think of the fastest route to end this so they could all go to bed.

"Manny I'm sorry…I-"

"I understand your concerns." For as much as Manny had grown used to his makeshift family's antics, he also knew that there were times and places to weaponize his natural grumpiness. This was one of those times. "We're going to get it cleaned up. And Poppy, we'll help rebuild your nest."

He leveled a brief glare at Sid who was shifting his weight nervously, before turning back to the simmering crowd. "It's going to be okay."

"It'll be okay when he stops playing with fire!" Poppy shifted a wing toward Sid. "Fire is for the humans, not us."

Manny didn't have to look to know Sid had glanced at him briefly. He fixed Poppy with his best incorrigible look. "Noted. No more fire in the public areas."

A short-snouted pig scoffed. "No more _them_ in the public areas!"

Manny feigned thoughtfulness. "You know, that suggestion's not half bad."

If Sid realized that Manny was, at this point, putting on more of a show than actually reprimanding him, he wasn't acting like it, "Manny, I'm sorry, but nobody got hurt, and Crash and Eddie…"

"Sidney! What is wrong with you!" A too-familiar voice cut above the grumblings of the crowd, and a moment later, Francine was pushing her way to the front. She stopped, eying the both of them and shaking her head. "I knew you were irresponsible."

"Franny, let me explain-"

"No! You know what? I don't want to hear any more of this!" She pointed one of her claws at him, "We were having a conversation and you said you'd be right back. And what were you doing? Helping those trouble-makers set something on fire."

"You can talk to him tomorrow." Manny grumbled at her because even if Sid didn't know where this was going, he did. Those two had been on and off for the last month, trying to "work things out," and Sid was only going to get his heart broken. "After we get this picked up."

Next to him, the sloth was looking between them indignantly, which usually preceded him saying something incredibly unhelpful. "We were only throwing a _little_ flaming mud! Franny _wait_!"

But Franny had already stormed her way back through the crowd.

"It was him Manny." Sid went on desperately, pointing to a muskox standing at the front of the crowd. The animal frowned at him darkly. "He was messing with Crash and Eddie and they asked for some help."

"Hey!" He jumped forward. "You're not going to blame this on me!"

"Oh yeah, buddy, then why'd they approach me in the first place?"

"So you went in on a prank with them?" Manny rounded on him before Sid could get much further away from his side. The sloth just frowned at him petulantly.

Before the argument could plunge back into chaos, the unmistakable steps of a larger mammal moving closer thumped over the voices, and Ellie stepped out of the trees a few moments later with Crash on her head and Eddie down at the tip of her trunk.

"Everybody's okay." Ellie said before anyone else could go back to complaining, and judging by the look on her face, she was also asking, him, as well.

"Good." Manny nodded to her in confirmation that everyone here was okay too.

"It was those little twerps!" the muskox yelled furiously, throwing his horns in the direction of the twins.

"You started it!" Eddie screamed, swinging his fist at him.

"Oh yeah, then let's go."

"Anytime." Crash cried, trying to get down off of Ellie's head, but she'd already reached up and secured both him and Eddie right behind the shocks of long fur.

Before Manny could begin accepting the fact that they weren't going to be sleeping anytime soon and then beginning to piece together what exactly was going on here, Ellie cut in. "We're all going to bed right now. No exceptions. Whatever happened, happened. No more whining, no more arguing. _Good night_."

They all watched in surprised silence as she turned and stormed off.

It only took a matter of seconds after that for the grumbling to start up again. But it was half-hearted, and all the other animals turned themselves around to head in the direction of their burrows and nests.

Reginald, a surly mid-age camel paused next to Manny as he left, glancing at Sid before shaking his head. "Look, you and Ellie have been great. But the rest of your "herd"…everyone else isn't mad because there's mud everywhere and half the lake's tree cover went up in smoke. It's because things like this are _always_ happening. I don't mean to be mean, but…just something to keep in mind."

" _Noted_."

The camel nodded at Manny's deadpan tone, checking once more to make sure that Sid hadn't heard – the sloth was a few feet away kicking a pile of charred leaves – and then nodded to Manny once more and left.

Soon, it was just the two of them.

Manny sighed. The air around them still smelled like rot and smoke, and he really should just suck it up and go get those burnt logs out of the middle of the lake so he wouldn't have to do it tomorrow.

"We finally get some time to ourselves, and I end up on a date with _you_." He shut his eyes and shook his head. Sometimes it felt like he was forever on a date with Sid. Their "bachelor" days, in which they found themselves racing the snow heading south, had been less than wild. When Sid looked up at him, Manny gave him a rare, amused smile as he looked around at the damage. "My life would be so boring without you."

That got a relieved smile, but the sloth still looked upset. "It wasn't all our fault Manny."

"Alright." Manny sighed and dropped the few charred sticks he'd absently been gathering. "Whatever it was that Fred said or did, I want to hear about it from you guys. But not tonight, okay?"

That did the trick. Placated, Sid enthusiastically fell into step as they began heading away from the lake, through the thickets of trees and shrubs, skirting around the waterfall, and over to their herd's small territory. If their clearing and its surrounding perimeter was even big enough to warrant the term.

"I don't think Franny and I are meant to be together." Sid said suddenly.

He should have known that the sloth was being too quiet. " _Really_?"

"Very funny." Sid whined. "You know how much I want to find a mate."

"Yeah, I know." Manny nodded. It was incredibly late now, and a part of him was surprised that without the kids here things were still this interesting. He wanted to not be enjoying it as much as he was. "Didn't you say that you've already been engaged?"

"Sylvia." Sid sighed with so much raw emotion that Manny had to laugh at him. He hadn't forgotten, but usually he could get Sid sidetracked pretty quickly by bringing her up. "It's not funny. She was crazy. You think my family abandoned me because I was weird? I couldn't get rid of her!"

"Your family left you at the mercy of two rhinos."

"I did that on my own." Sid waved him off, as if Manny randomly saving his life was just another day in their relationship. Which it was.

"You always do things on your own until you need me to come in and save you from them." Like climbing up a waterfall with a human baby clutched in one paw.

Manny waited a moment, just to see if both of their minds had gone to the same place. And if so, if the sloth would say anything more. Sid rarely wanted to discuss the early days of their relationship.

Whenever a conversation did manage to get that close, there was usually some kind of a time jump involved in which Manny complained about the rhino incident, and then suddenly he was traveling south with Sid.

No one had ever asked about that gap before, not even Ellie. Manny had alluded to it briefly at one point, but she hadn't asked for details, and he didn't really want to go into it anyway. He doubted she would understand, and it was over and done with anyway.

Trying to talk about how they'd managed to befriend a saber and then promptly got him killed by his own pack was something that he'd struggled to reconcile. Even if the whole thing had begun as an ambush plot, Manny still felt guilty. He never should have hesitated when the pack leader had him cornered.

Because whatever choices had been made over the course of that three days, Manny had liked his two new friends a lot. Heading south afterwards with only Sid had been hard. Heck, just getting Sid to stop swinging wildly between his usual free-spirited demeanor and bottomless depression had been difficult. Neither of them really wanted to talk about that fight or their final conversation in the falling snow, and Manny quickly found that leveling Sid out during the grieving process was almost more than he could handle.

It hadn't helped that they'd been so far behind that there was no one else to migrate with by that point. Everywhere they went was endlessly snowy with another storm always on the horizon. Getting back among other animals had improved both of their moods, and things had gotten even better once Ellie and the twins came along.

But even after all these years, Manny knew that a part of the sloth's heart was still broken.

"You'll find someone." He continued before Sid had a chance to think everything through and retreat into the uncharacteristic sullenness that surfaced whenever they _did_ find themselves talking about Half Peak. "Just think, maybe she'll smell even worse than you."

Sid grinned. "Thanks, but I still maintain that you have a very cruel sense of humor."

* * *

I just want to make it clear that even though the humans were mentioned above, they won't be in this story. While I'm not completely sold on how far movies 2-5 stray from the original rules of the story world, this fic is very much focused on the dynamics of the herd.

Also, a quick note on the whole finding love for Sid thing. I know that one review of the fifth movie criticized his romantic subplot, but I'm not opposed to the arc of Sid finding a significant other. That being said, the whole plot structure of _Collision Course_ was way off, and one of the (many) things it affected was Sid's love life. I think that there is a huge amount of potential in the Sid/Brooke relationship, but it should come from a more realistically-paced place. Brooke isn't shy about the fact that she likes him immediately, which is great, but it felt rushed on Sid's part. He strikes me as the kind of guy who finally manages to find someone he has deep feelings for and suddenly hits the brakes. His enthusiasm over their relationship really only served to keep the film moving forward, and it felt very flat for him. He gets excited on the surface, but he really does think things through (you know, sometimes). Falling in love is not something he's going to take lightly, and once a relationship reaches that deeper stage, he probably won't come at it from his usual angles of silliness and blind optimism. To me, that really marks the difference between his relationship with Franny and the one he'll have with Brooke.

Merry (Late) Christmas and Happy (Also Late) New Year!

Please R&R! Thanks!


	5. Chapter 5

Guess who's getting their butt in gear and getting some words written. That's right! This loch-dwelling monster!

There was a question from a guest reviewer, and I've got (sort-of) answers at the end of this chapter.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading!

* * *

"Peaches?"

The silence must have been killing him.

"Hey…Peaches…?"

He sounded a bit more panicked.

"Come on Peaches. Where'd you go?"

There was a gratuitously long silence that even he should have realized was a trap.

" _Peaches_!"

Julian was spinning in circles, feet sinking into the soft snow. The powder tufted the roots of the trees and sat precariously on the surrounding evergreen branches. Like home. Or at least, the regions they'd called home for the last few years.

But, in the moment, Peaches was too busy listening to her husband huff around down on the ground.

Quick as a possum, she was swinging backwards from a sturdy branch and scooping up a trunkful of snow on the way down. Julian, predictably, turned at the sound, and got a face full of powder on her upswing.

Giggling uncontrollably, Peaches lithely set her front feet on the ground and dropped from the branch. "Hey honey, were you looking for me or…?"

So quickly that she wouldn't have had time to dodge even if she'd known he was going to do it, Julian charged toward her, easily taking her down with him as he tumbled to the ground.

"Oh hey, there you are." Julian smiled down at her, as Peaches huffed and gasped, trying to catch her breath and laughing too hysterically to do either effectively. "Peaches? You okay?"

Of course that just made her laugh harder, wriggling a little bit to try and escape, but Julian stayed where he was, firmly trapping her. "Hey hon, I can't understand you."

"You…you…your…"

"What's that? You're sorry you pelted me in the face with snow?"

"You're…so…" With all her might, Peaches wrenched her trunk free and reached to their right. "Dead!"

She didn't have the satisfaction of seeing Julian's surprised face as the leaves and snow mixture made him cough and shift away from her, enough that she could roll out from under him and immediately pin him into the snow.

He may have surprised her, but she was faster and knew how to move effectively to maximize her impact.

"Told you, you were dead," she teased as Julian groaned from vertigo underneath her. Peaches smiled down at him. "And I love you."

"Even though I'm dead?"

"Even though you're dead."

They'd spent the last few days exploring this lush forest region.

Unlike a week ago, if this was roaming, Peaches could get used to it. In fact, it was everything she'd known she was missing back home. As she gave Julian one last cheeky smile and plopped backwards so he could get up, a small sense of vindication lit in her chest like the start of one of Uncle Sid's fires.

It was small like sparks catching precariously on snow-soaked wood.

She'd known that this would be good. Even with their fight, even with the uncertainty that fidgeted right next to them when they fell asleep at night, and even with the sometimes-exhausting days of rough terrain, it was all something that she would have never gotten any way else.

Julian rolled to his feet, a spring coming back into his step as he righted himself. Then he smiled at her. It was giddy and love drunk. Something that had shocked her the first time it had happened. She'd never known that anyone could look at her that way.

She smiled back, happy.

They were heading loosely northeast. Julian wasn't overly picky about their route, but Peaches got the sense that he was a much better navigator than he was letting on. In fact, on more than one occasion he'd taken charge when they'd come to a confusing fork in a trail or a maze-like series of glacier debris.

"Have you been this way before?" Peaches asked as an exceptionally cold breeze ruffled their fur.

Julian shook his head as he bounced along beside her. "I came from the south when I was heading toward the coast. But I wondered what was farther north. Hey, do you…do you hear that?"

For a moment, Peaches was sure he was about to take belated revenge on her snow and mud combo from early, but then another cold breeze glided over top of them. And she most definitely _did_ hear something.

It was too low to be another animal. And it sent a strange zap down her spine.

"Hang on." Peaches nodded to him and then hurried over to a tree, using her trunk to pull herself high up into the branches.

It wasn't the sturdiest conifer she could have picked, but it got her off the ground far enough to see the black horizon. The line between earth and sky was warped, and for a moment, Peaches stared at it in bewilderment.

That wasn't good.

She knew when she dropped back down that Julian could see the storm clouds in her expression.

"I think it's a snowstorm coming in." She walked back over to him, let him take her trunk in his, as they stared at each other in worry.

"How far away?" He asked quietly.

There was a wide plain between them and it, and Peaches described it to him. She got the sense that it wouldn't take the snow long to reach them.

"We already have cover," Julian said, eyes turning unfocused as he thought. It was a side of him she hadn't seen before they were married, and it was weirdly comforting to her. "It'll come through here, but we won't be out in the middle of nowhere." His eyes focused back on her. "Okay, when the storm comes in, we'll dig a snow cave and wait it out."

"What should we do now?" There had to be a better place for them to be when the snow did hit. This spot, in a sparse clearing, couldn't be the best place this forest had to offer.

Julian looked at her, and a smile began after a few moments that seemed to say _You're getting good at this_. "We need to find a place that's already partially protected. The less work for us, the better."

Peaches smiled and nodded, and then they both glanced around them. They'd already spent days here; the mass of trees was huge. All they needed to do was find a collection of fallen logs or some rare clot of undergrowth. It was getting colder than at home, and the leafy trees were much scarcer.

Still, Peaches made her way quickly between the trunks, searching for any place that looked like it could successfully shelter two mammoths.

She was just about to double back and check a different section around their original starting place, when she saw the tracks.

They belonged to a carnivore.

Peaches stopped and stared at them. There were rounded imprints from the pads and the individual fingers. A little harder to see, but definitely there all the same, were the thin slices of the claws. They weren't exceptionally long, but they were claws.

She didn't know much about tracking, but the prints certainly looked fresh. Perhaps they'd wandered into a deeper problem than a snowstorm.

Suddenly, she remembered the sound she'd heard how many miles back. Maybe it hadn't been her imagination or a small animal after all. Maybe she had been right to jump to fear first.

"Hey, I might have found a possible place. Do you have anything over here?" Julian was at her side a few moments later, glancing at her and then down to what she was staring at. "That's a wolf print," he murmured, thinking. "We haven't seen anyone else though. It's all been empty for the last ten miles."

"Actually…last week I heard something," Peaches said carefully. "It was just a sound, when we were…uh, separated for a while."

"What?" Julian's voice was just a little too concerned for her taste.

"Yeah, but nothing happened. It just disappeared."

Julian was frowning at her now. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I honestly forgot about it," she shrugged.

"Peaches you can't just forget things like this. You could have gotten hurt. Something could have happened."

There was a huge rushing sound around them, a heralding as the wind suddenly picked up. Peaches shook her head at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't think anything of it. It was just a noise."

"But it wasn't," Julian spluttered as the first few flakes began to calmly sweep in around them. The blue sky overhead was still mostly intact, but there was a darkness on the edge of the tree line.

And how was she supposed to know that one small, small noise had been something? She hadn't grown up in any areas with carnivores. "Nothing happened."

"If it would have…if it ever does, your parents will kill me." He said it so emphatically, Peaches could feel guilt beginning to take over what was otherwise pure annoyance. And a bit of embarrassment, if she was completely honest.

The storm really began then. In a moment, the sun and bright sky were covered in grey, almost white, clouds. The trees shook as arctic winds blasted between them, stirring up the snow already on the ground and dumping ice-cold, fat flakes all around them.

Without thinking, they both reached for each other, pressing their foreheads together as the tempest spun around them. It was terrifying.

Soon, the snow was halfway up their legs, growing thicker and thicker. The dark clouds had been an illusion. Everything was turning blinding, stinging white.

They needed shelter.

Julian and Peaches looked at each other with wide eyes. "Snow cave."

Julian spun, dragging her with him, and they wove too slowly through the trees until they'd gone about thirty paces. Julian was looking around frantically, before finally turning back to her and shrugging. His potential place was already buried, but with the snow coming in this fast, the drifts they were standing in would only get higher.

Instead, they began to dig where they were, using their trunks to hollow out a drift and pack more snow on top. The winds were driving more to accumulate on the other side, and what should have taken a good half hour of work was finished in five minutes.

They went inside, Peaches packing snow in around their entrance while Julian used his trunk to poke holes around them.

"For fresh air," he said when Peaches glanced at him.

There weren't many times in her life she'd truly felt small, but this was one of them.

"Nothing can survive out here in this. We'll be safe here," Julian whispered after a few minutes. Their quiet little haven soaked up most of his voice, but Peaches still shivered and snuggled closer to him.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It's just…nothing came after me. Dad was always really clear about how fast predators can move. When whatever it was went away, I just assumed it was nothing."

Julian didn't say anything for at least two minutes, and Peaches' embarrassment slowly won out over her annoyance at being chastised for something she'd never had cause to know. Julian's voice was still quiet when he spoke again. "Carnivores scope out areas. If they see prey, they'll go back and tell their pack where it is."

There was another somber silence, and Peaches tried to figure out how to respond.

"My family…we were always really free-spirited. And there were some things I had to figure out on my own. Lone mammoths are targets, and I've just…heard stories."

"Were you ever attacked?" Peaches asked in alarm.

"No, no. But I always knew that there was a chance. I almost wish I would have been told that before I decided to strike out on my own. Although, I probably would have done it anyway."

"Sometimes it's better to take a chance." Peaches answered, even though she also wanted to immediately contradict herself. She'd never want anything to happen to Julian. Even the thought made her feel distressed and endlessly, irreparably sad.

Not wanting to play anything safe had been her reckless mantra throughout her teen years. It bothered her to think that she was still like that, deep down.

Julian shifted closer so that he could wrap his trunk around her shoulders. "You know, I'd kind of hoped that maybe this trip would help that. I know that you have some issues with your dad."

"I just didn't want to spend my whole life worrying and hiding the way he wanted me to. The way _he_ does." She reached her trunk up to wrap around his. Peaches could wax poetic for a while, so instead she contented herself with adding. "I want to get the most out of this that I can. I want to figure out…I guess I want to know who I really am. Who I could be."

"Peaches, you're amazing, and I'm sure that if Manny could see you right now, he'd be proud of you."

She smiled. "Thanks honey. I think he'd be pretty proud of you, too."

Julian perked up. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. This snow cave was your idea. You know what you're doing."

"Thanks."

Peaches nudged him. "Will you tell me another story?"

"Sure. Uh…" Julian stopped to think for a moment. "Ooh, did I tell you the one about the tribe of mini sloths?"

"Tribe of what?"

"Okay, so one day I was going through this valley that had really, really high ice walls…" Julian talked quietly, and she closed her eyes, listening and asking questions. They went back and forth for what seemed like forever as the storm grew blurrier and blurrier above them.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Peaches fell asleep.

000

"So they just…left you like that?"

"Yep!" Sid answered, tripping over himself as he rummaged among the bushes. Every once in a while, he'd disappear into them until all Ellie could see were glimpses of grey-brown fur.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, you know." Sid straightened up and looked at her. He grinned goofily. He wasn't in tears or anything like Ellie would have been, but there was a sadness in his eyes that Ellie could have sworn had really always been there. She just hadn't noticed it on her own. "I expected it after a while. But hearing it all from Fred made it seem less like a memory and more like it's still happening to me."

"Oh sweetie."

"But I'm not as bad as Manny." Sid pointed out, diving back into the bush and making the branches next to him rustle as he located the perfect sticks to add to the veritable logs she'd drug from the undergrowth. "I'm not good at living in the past."

Ellie snorted. She knew how that felt. It had been a shock to find out that she wasn't a possum with some depth-perception problems. Rather, the imagined height and weird vantage points stemmed from her being a mammoth rather than a marsupial with poor eyesight and balance issues. Still, she was herself because of her family and the progression of events that made up her life. It was all she could have ever wanted. In fact, she rarely thought about alternatives.

But Sid clearly had some unresolved issues. Ellie sometimes wished that she'd sat him down earlier to talk, rather than letting Manny's dismissive affections influence her relationship with him.

Now, she just glanced at the sky and the wispy, almost sick-looking clouds hanging there. Then she looked back at the bush where Sid was emerging with paws full of small twigs that would help the fire to catch. She smiled at him. "We're your family, sweetie. And we're always here."

Sid grinned back at her. "I know."

000

Sometimes Manny felt as though he had three kids, even four depending on how much trouble Sid was getting himself into at the time.

This was one of those times.

Except it was less annoyance about the antics of his brothers-in-law and more fury that, after all this time, their herd was still getting second glances.

"And then he just started shouting about how you guys should just disown us and be done with it!" Crash was whining. Not that Manny blamed him.

Usually he was on the side of whoever Crash and Eddie's target was. This time, he was about ready to march down to the watering hole and give Fred an earful for butting into his herd and trying to intimidate the possums into hanging out elsewhere.

Manny knew firsthand how annoying the twins could be. But he also knew that much of their worst behavior was reserved for their central herd. They hadn't even been doing anything wrong when Fred had started tearing into them.

He sighed. "Okay, and where do Jace and Brad come into this?"

The twins exchanged nervous glances.

"Right, so this is the part where I need to actually get mad at you two."

"They still chased me." Eddie offered. "Or, er, tried. They thought it was me, but they did chase Crash so it still counts!"

"And they hurt my tail!"

"Look me in the eye and tell me that I wouldn't have chased you after whatever it was you'd been doing."

Both possums looked away simultaneously.

"Are you mad about the fire, Manny?" Crash asked quietly after the mammoth had been shaking his head for a good five seconds in silence.

Manny looked up at them. He knew that the twins often felt left out here. With Peaches gone, he supposed there was no one to keep them out of trouble, or defend them, quite the way she could. He couldn't blame them for sticking up for themselves after all the melodramatic crap he'd pulled in the past on his friends, family, and any strangers unfortunate enough to cross paths with him.

"Just…help me get the rest of the lake cleaned up tonight, and we'll call it even, how's that?"

Both possums seemed to light up, and even though Manny knew that their "help" was going to be nothing more than an assurance that more would go wrong, he just nodded at them.

"Deal!" The twins said at the same time and then went scampering off, weaving through Ellie's legs as she returned with Sid. Her trunk was full of firewood which Sid directed her to put in roughly the center of their clearing. They'd been planning on holding off on the fires for a few days, but it was getting colder. Their neighbors could get over it.

Ellie caught his eye as she dumped the haul at Sid's feet. "I'm surprised they looked so happy."

"We'll talk about it." Manny said. He'd heard Sid's side of the story – Crash and Eddie had decided that his talents were best used lighting mud balls on fire to show Fred "how annoying they could be if they really wanted" and Sid had been hesitant to help until the muskox had started making fun of him for his mismatched family – and it all sounded like, for once, they weren't the ones causing problems.

At least Sid had seemed to brush it off after that. The sloth had been unpleasantly annoying for the last half day and was even more determined to involve "his best buddy Manfred" in his daily schedule of mud-seeking and berry-eating. It made Manny feel good to see him back to normal.

"Sure." She nodded, eyes taking on a cheeky glint. "I'm just saying that I'm not even that happy when we get done talking."

"Hey, if you want to get Fred to pick a fight with you, maybe we'd get this one to leave us alone for five minutes." He motioned with his trunk just as Sid yelped and tripped backwards over his tail.

He sat up and frowned. "Hey, if you guys want alone time, all you have to do is say the word…"

"Great, bye!"

"Manny!" Ellie quirked both eyebrows, silently commanding him to take it back.

He frowned at her.

"It's fine." Sid rose to his feet, brushing at his fur. He tilted his head up to look at the sky, and Manny looked up too, suddenly noticing how dark it was already starting to get. Great. A storm was rolling in. "I'll be at the waterfall if anyone needs me."

"Be careful, and no jumping off the top." Ellie reminded him. No one was so stupid as to do that, but both mammoths still thought it best to remind the less consequence-minded members exactly how sharp those rocks at the bottom were.

Sid was gone before Ellie had even finished her sentence.

"So about the possums…"

"Manny, I think Sid was really hurt by what Fred said to him." Ellie was looking at him seriously.

"Okay. Did he say something to you?"

She gave a short sigh before saying. "He was telling me about his family today. About how much Fred's attitude reminds him of his relationship with them. I didn't realize how many times they tried to ditch him."

"He'll be fine." Manny said, mostly because he'd seen "upset Sid," the one that was _really, really_ upset before, and this was nowhere close to it.

" _No_ , Manny, you need to talk to him. I mean it. Either you do it, or I will."

He didn't get the chance to ask where this was coming from or why she was forcing him into a task that was surely going to end with him pissed off and Sid blabbering endlessly. There was a soundless tremor under their feet, and the world seemed to stop.

"Uh…what was that?"

Manny just stared at her with wide eyes. Overhead, the angry sky was steadily growing darker. They both knew exactly what it was.

Another tremble and the trees shook a little more.

"Earthquake." He didn't need to say it, but he hadn't had time to react the last time this had happened. Even though there was no chance of plummeting into the ocean this time, the memory still terrified him. He'd almost jumped to them, almost, but Sid had grabbed onto him in fear at the last second and they'd sunk another few inches away. The gap had been impossible to begin with, looking back, but even Manny had known that he couldn't get across once it had fallen that much farther. Now, he needed to reassure himself that he was one step ahead this time.

"It's okay; it wasn't strong." Ellie said carefully.

A third tremor hit, and thunder grumbled down at them. Despite the looks of the sky, it sounded far away. Somehow, that was even scarier.

"We're gonna be okay." Ellie was looking at him like she knew what he was thinking.

But in that moment, there was a more urgent thought that was painfully occurring to him. "What about…Peaches and Julian?"

Ellie just stared back at him, as if she hadn't thought of that.

"What do we do?"

"Honey, I don't think…they're gone. There's nothing we can do."

"But…"

"Manny. We are here and they're somewhere else. This was the decision that we made together, and…it's going to be okay. Stay here. I'll round everybody up." Ellie nodded to him, bracing herself against yet another rumble beneath them. An echoing one came from the sky right after it.

Manny watched her go, trying to formulate a plan and inadvertently scaring himself more and more and more.

Their daughter was out there somewhere, probably feeling these tremors too or possibly going through something even worse, and they weren't there to help her. There was no way they could even get there.

For the first time, their family was separated, on purpose, and there was a disaster, probably, on the other side of that ominous horizon.

They were all powerless, and for Manny, it hadn't sunk in until right then.

000

The storm buried them.

Neither were sure how long they'd been in their cave, but it took ten minutes of caving snow down on their heads for sunlight to bleed through.

Peaches got out first and then pulled Julian out after her. She gave a little tug on his trunk once he was free. "Hey, we did it."

He grinned. "We did. I…uh, like this teamwork better."

"Me too."

Once he was sure she wasn't offended by the comment, Julian looked around them. "Now we just need to figure out what to do about that carnivore."

They stepped away from their shelter and looked around. The sun was shining aggressively, as if in retaliation for getting covered by storm clouds, and all around them, trees had been leveled. Most of the forest behind, and everything in front of, them had been torn apart.

Snow covered it all.

Dumbfounded, they both stumbled over the drifts toward the start of the open plain. There, in the snow, were more tracks. The carnivore's tracks, still wolf it looked like, made circular trails up to the tree line. At the same time, a smaller, more petite set of hooves followed a similar pattern.

Both animals' tracks came from across the plain and led back that direction as well.

"I uh…think we may have bigger issues."

* * *

Well, our dynamic duo is definitely getting closer to something.

A guest reviewer asked about the dino birds. While I will forever question Blue Sky's decision to introduce a subterranean dinosaur paradise to the ice age, it did give us Buck and it is canon. I know I said that there are some canon elements that I'm ignoring altogether (the also-questionable meteor thing for one), but Buck is going to have to equal dinosaurs. I also don't think that the dino birds were objectively bad villains, but their part in the plot was so rushed that it didn't matter what they did. Anyway, I don't want to give too much away, but I think it's safe to say that we'll eventually be seeing some familiar faces.

Please R&R, thanks!


	6. Chapter 6

Hi all!

I want to say a BIG thank you for the guest reviews on the last two chapters! I love reading your comments, and I'm so glad you're liking the story so far!

* * *

It took them a good two hours to get from one side of the plain to the other.

It certainly wasn't that long of a walk, but they weren't really in any hurry.

The rest of the leveled land was empty to the edges of view, and even though Peaches was keeping an eye on the northern horizon, where another storm was passing by on the edge of eyesight, their surroundings were calm.

Still, Peaches very much felt like they were between something. Or on the edge of a between. The forest behind them had felt firm and consistent, but this plain was too open.

Neither of them was quite sure what to do about the tracks, and they spent more time slowly walking around the prints and looking at them than moving forward.

The other animals must have come through when the storm was over, in what was then a fresh blanket of snow. Because the land was so flat, most of the snow that had fallen had been blown into the leveled trees behind them, leaving a slightly thinner piling across the plain. And it was all too easy to follow the well-defined trails.

The farther they walked, and circled, and examined, the easier it was to plot out a path. The tracks wove and intersected randomly on the coming and going routes. And as the two mammoths danced around them, Peaches wished that they were less defined. Or not there at all.

Because there was definitely something off about the pattern. For a full-grown wolf – Julian had stood over one print about halfway across the plateau for a long time trying to guess the age – and a much smaller, obviously herbivorous, animal in the same place at the same time, it was weird that there were no signs of a fight.

Either Peaches was horrible at this, or something weird was going on here.

She thought about their own herd for a moment and then kept walking.

A few steps ahead, Julian looked puzzled, but not fearful. When he saw her looking in his direction, he smiled. "Whoever it was, they must be long gone by now."

"But have you ever seen…this?" Peaches looked down at her own feet, which were sinking farther into the snow than the tracks around her. They'd avoided stepping on the prints, and now it looked like they were a part of whatever little convoy had come through. Almost like the two of them had met the other animals at the edge of the tree line for an escort. Would someone come after them and wonder what had happened here?

This was exactly the kind of thing that Dad would _not_ like, and they'd have either doubled back by now or would be taking a different direction forward.

Peaches frowned at the tracks as Julian said, "No, I haven't. But like I said, I've never been up this far north."

"Do you think we're safe?" She looked up at him.

At this, Julian hesitated. Then he shrugged and looked toward the opposite tree line. It had been impossible to see when they'd begun their walk, but now Peaches could see that another forest was more than likely coming up. It sat slightly northeast, and it felt like the position of the plain, and more obviously the tracks across it, were pushing them in that direction. "I don't know. But it's not too late to pick a different route."

They both stood thinking for a few minutes. Peaches wasn't sure what was on Julian's mind, for once, but she knew that the tracks bothered her. The prospect of letting them scare her off bothered her even more.

After another silent moment, Julian said, "I think I'm okay with keeping going. Unless you want to go south and put distance between us and them."

The problem was that they didn't know where "them" – whoever they were – actually was, and as Julian was speaking, it was quickly occurring to Peaches that this would be the case no matter what they did. Because _here_ was really nowhere. Just as a few steps, five steps, a mile farther, was also nowhere. They were out in the middle of a wasteland, and they'd come across a situation that neither of them had ever encountered before.

Ironically, this was what her family's life had always been like before she came along. They'd traveled and explored just like everyone else. Because the truth was, they _didn't_ know what was waiting out there. For a long time, staying in one place hadn't been the safest option.

And maybe being "safe" wasn't always the most important thing anyway.

Peaches lifted her head toward the sliver of forest in front of them. "No. I want to know what's over there."

"Really?" Julian asked carefully.

"It's like you said when we were first talking about this. We've got the whole place to ourselves." Peaches looked over at him, waiting. He'd said he wanted to keep going, but she could hear his hesitation. Whether it was out of second-guessing himself or simply worry that she'd think he was crazy, Peaches wasn't completely sure. Either way, she wasn't going to push him into this.

"Then let's do it." He grinned.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!" Julian also looked toward the horizon, a too-cool smirk brightening his face. He tilted his head up dramatically, and Peaches started laughing as he struck a confident pose. "Time for another daring adventure!"

So they started off again, purposefully following the tracks.

000

It was late afternoon by the time the tracks disappeared into the rises and gullies of uneven, forested ground. But the trees themselves were only about fifty paces thick, and then they too fell back into another plain that was smaller than the last but eerily silent.

Peaches and Julian simultaneously stopped and looked at each other.

It was like stepping abruptly from one ecosystem into another. While their earlier travels had transitioned gradually from one environment to the next, like a slow sunset, there had clearly been an incident here. Maybe not a fire or a flood, but something had cut through this piece of land and left it flattened and barren.

And there was less snow. It looked like this area had just narrowly avoided the storm, and only the edges of the trees and ground to their right had a thick covering.

Everything else was drier and emptier. And there were still no sounds.

"Wow! Cool!" Julian hopped ahead of her eagerly, and after a few moments, she began to slowly follow.

For all her talk, Peaches was still worried. She knew that this was the right route to take, and that they'd made the right decision, but it didn't make this place any less unwelcoming.

Julian, however, kept retracing his steps and looking at the ground. He'd lean in close, one eye squinting at the lines and the small bits of rocks and plant debris that ran longways through a break in the trees on their left and right. It almost seemed like something massive had come through and leveled it all.

"Where are we?" Peaches murmured, her own voice cutting at the emptiness.

"I don't know, but I like it here." Julian tossed the rock he'd been holding with his trunk and straightened up.

The snowstorm had been in the late morning, and as they eventually made their way towards the other side of this clearing, the light was steadily falling into night.

They reached the other side and walked into more trees, thicker this time and without an obvious end.

The weird energy seemed to dilute, and Peaches breathed a big sigh of relief.

Julian didn't seem to notice a difference, and he reached for her trunk and grinned. Peaches grinned back.

They were in this now, and even though the image of the dead-silent clearing behind them hadn't totally left her mind, Peaches tried to relax.

"This reminds me of the time I had to go through this swamp in the dark." Julian started saying, swinging their trunks, and bounding along fearlessly. "Have I told you this? The one with the beehive and the hailstorm…?"

After an hour, once the sun had fully set and they were walking through trees and shadows, there were voices.

Julian had long-since finished his swamp-hail story with the assertion that beehives were deceptively sticky, and it was best not to leave them on one's back for too long. Peaches had struggled to hide her laughter when he indicated the patch of shorter fur just behind his shoulder blades where he'd had to rip the hive off. Her husband was the best.

Now as they walked in silence for a few paces, listening, it was quickly obvious that those were definitely voices somewhere farther ahead in the trees. They quickly decided to move closer and check it out.

It was talking, and sometimes laughter, and the closer they got, the more it seemed like the voice stayed mostly the same. Until, suddenly, Peaches and Julian were stumbling on a well-hidden clearing packed with animals.

In the dim light of the moon, Peaches looked around, just as Julian was doing next to her, trying to take in the mammoths on the edges, lounging and listening. There were shapes in the middle, sabers – a lot of them – and some deer and other animals, all the way up to where a lone saber was sitting at the front, facing the crowd. "And so we kept walking. The weather was getting brutal, almost the worst I've ever been in…"

To their right, one of the dark shapes, a saber, scoffed. His friend, another saber, turned and smiled at him sarcastically. The two of them noticed Julian and Peaches and blinked at them.

"What is this?" Julian leaned past her and whispered.

"Someone wanted him to tell a story, so we're taking a break from rounds." The scoffer whispered back and then grinned sideways. "We've all heard this a million times, but it's still crazy."

"Can we join?" Julian asked quickly, eyes lighting up.

"Of course." The saber nodded to where they were standing, motioning for them to make themselves comfortable. This was basically the only free space in the entire clearing, and the two of them immediately laid down next to each other.

Only a few of the other animals around them seemed to notice, and no one looked at them for long.

Peaches snuggled down next to him, idly looking around them and up to the saber at the front. This was weird. Way weirder than she could have guessed. But, they'd agreed that this was their route, and it only made sense to stick around and scope this place out.

"Once it stopped snowing, I went on ahead a little to scout for issues. And to try and regain some of my body heat." The saber telling the story was laying on a rock that raised him up just high enough to see over the backs of the other animals. He was smiling at this memory as he continued. "I was just coming over the ridge that would take us down and around the ice caves when I saw them." He paused for dramatic effect, but it was more playful than anything else.

A few animals laughed or giggled.

"There were the humans! I knew that I only had a few seconds to change our course or we'd never get to where _I_ needed us to be." He shook his head, and Peaches was sure that his smile got just a little sadder. More sheepish.

"And then what happened?" A sarcastic voice cried from somewhere ahead of them.

There was more laughter and happy murmuring among the listeners.

"Yeah Diego, how are you going to get yourself out of this one?"

The saber just grinned evilly. "The only way was to pick the alternative route. Through the ice caves it was."

A collective groan. A million times indeed.

"They wouldn't budge, and I ended up yelling to get them inside. That caused in avalanche, and we were trapped. I remember thinking that it was a really good thing that I insisted on figuring out a route through even though Soto thought it would be useless…"

Next to her, Julian was rapt with wonder. She'd never seen his eyes so big, and Peaches just smiled lazily and leaned more against him.

This was a good story. The ice slides were exactly the sort of fun Dad would disapprove of, and the human cave sounded like something from a dream. Peaches had never seen the humans; she'd only ever been vaguely aware that they existed at all. Most of their presence was taken over by the fact that they'd attacked her father's first family. She'd never thought about them much beyond that.

"As we were walking through that cave, things started to change." Diego's smile was a little shy, until he told the part about the sloth trying to calm the baby down because in one of the drawings "the sabers were just playing tag with the antelope."

Diego rolled his eyes. "That was nonsense, and I was feeling pretty off my game from those ice slides and the friendly competition, so I walked over to him and said, 'Come on Sid, let's play tag. You're it.'"

Peaches would have stood up in shock if Julian hadn't been leaning against her. Instead, she just sat forward, forcing him to steady himself with a surprised yelp.

"I was trying my best to ignore them now that I'd actually enjoyed our little adventure together, but that changed once we got to the ice sheet."

Diego had mentioned a mammoth, too. They'd raced side by side down the final stretch.

"The fire was hot and awful. I still can't believe Sid was the only one who felt it bubbling up, and once it hit the surface, everything became a blur." Diego was saying seriously, "I somehow ended up at the back of the group, and there was only one ice bridge for about a mile on either side. We couldn't go back because that part had already collapsed, and Sid was taking his sweet time going forward. I tried to get them to move faster, but of course, all I got back was sarcasm."

The crowd laughed again, but there was an anticipatory hush that immediately followed.

"Eventually, it was just me. Another huge section had fallen off between where I was standing and the last bit of ice that connected to solid ground. It was either try and jump or stay put and fall in. I don't remember thinking that it was a long way; I just knew that I needed to go sooner rather than later. I think if I would have backed up a few paces, I may have been able to get farther onto the other ledge. But, in the moment, I just went for it. My front paws hit the ice, and I dug in. But I didn't have enough leverage or grip to pull myself the rest of the way back up.

"I don't think I was hanging there for more than a few seconds when I looked up and saw that Manfred was slowly creeping toward me with his trunk extended. It all felt almost instantaneous. In the moment, I honestly wasn't surprised to see him, I was barely keeping myself focused on the situation as it was. When he finally reached me, I remember quickly extending my paw to try and meet him when the ice under me snapped."

Peaches felt Julian take a quick breath.

"He caught me as it fell. His feet were as close to the edge as they could be, and he had me by the foreleg with his trunk. Everything felt very precarious, so I reached up and clawed his trunk a bit to get some purchase in case he lost his hold.

"Then, before either of us could do anything else, there was a louder snapping sound, and we shifted down a few inches. I was still in midair, but I know he felt it because he looked backward and a moment later swung me over his shoulder. I hit the ground hard about twenty feet away, and just as I caught up to what had happened, I looked back and the ice broke the rest of the way. We could hear him trumpeting as he fell.

"For a few seconds, all I could do was stare at where he'd just been and wish that what had just happened, hadn't just happened. Of course, what I didn't notice while we were on the ice bridge was that, as the chunks fell, they were being pushed back upward from the magma. Another few moments, and Manfred was shooting back up as well and crashing down near us.

"Sid immediately went over to check and see if he was okay and ended up almost suffocating him on accident. But I just laid there." Diego shook his head. "I should have gone over and made sure he was going to be alright. Sid wasn't doing much more than fussing, but I was still too shocked. And angry. My motives for that journey were, at best, unclear to them. And Manfred still decided that it was worth it to risk his life. I didn't want to feel like that should mean something to me. And I didn't want to admit to myself that it made me care.

"I was so mad at myself, that I asked him why he did it. It was the dumbest thing I could have done. I should have just apologized, and in the end, his answer is what did me in." Diego's expression picked up into a little self-deprecating smile. "He said, 'That's what you do in a herd. You look out for each other,' like we were on the same team. I didn't know it right then, but I was so screwed."

That got a huge laugh from everyone around them, and Diego waited a few seconds for it to quiet down again before smiling and going on. Other than when he'd started this section of the story, his voice was even and easy, like he'd relived this so many times, it didn't bother him anymore.

But it bothered Peaches.

"…and then once we reached the cliff face, the wind died down. I remember standing next to Manfred, looking at Half Peak in the distance as he asked me how much farther to Glacier Pass. We were about three miles away at that point, and even saying so made me extremely uncomfortable. When he suggested we stop for the night, I was relieved. We all needed to rest, and I would have felt bad for pushing him to go farther.

"Which, by the way, is not a good feeling to have when you're leading someone into a trap."

"Then don't be a jerk Diego!" A high-pitched voice yelled from somewhere to their right. A bunch of animals laughed, and Diego cracked a huge grin in that direction, bright green eyes glinting.

"Let him finish his story, Claire!" Another voice called to even more jeering and joke-making.

"We made camp there," Diego began, probably to stop whatever good-natured argument was about to break out. "Sid started drawing on the cliff face wall and…"

As Diego talked on about the fire, Uncle Sid's _first_ fire; the baby approaching him; realizing that he was more comfortable with a mammoth and a sloth than he was with his pack; and his midmorning confession in a hollow of the mountain, Peaches struggled to keep her anger in check.

Her father and uncle had teamed up with a carnivore to save a human baby. And they'd never told her about any of it.

Diego obviously knew how to maximize the story's impact, though, and the clearing was tense as he went through the fight with his pack blow by blow. When he got to the part about his pack leader throwing him into a rock, even Peaches was captivated.

"Manfred was cornered when I came to," he said. "I knew what Soto was going to do, and I also knew that the fight wasn't over yet. It wasn't too late. I came between them because it was my fault. And I didn't want him to die."

They'd said sad goodbyes in the thickening snow, and Diego had urged them on for fear that they would try to stay with him for too long. "I passed out for a while after that, and when I woke up again, I was alone. I tried to catch their scents, hoping that they were still close enough for me to track, but I never did figure out where they went after that. I hope that they caught up to the humans in time. But, at least my pack was off their tails. At least I did one thing right.

"So…yeah. The end." Diego shrugged, and a round of whistling and cheering began. He smirked at them. Whatever gravity he'd been manipulating during the story vanished, and he looked content and happy sitting up there as animals stood to approach him or nod to him and each other as they dispersed.

Peaches rose to her feet.

"Honey…are you okay?" Julian asked carefully as the animals around them were getting up and leaving. Without answering him, Peaches parted the tide as she made her way to the front of the clearing.

By the time she got up there, Diego was talking to a deer and saber. When Peaches got close enough, they all looked up, and Diego smiled. "Hi."

She stopped squarely in front of him. "All of that stuff you just said, that was true? About the mammoth and the sloth?"

He nodded like he was used to this question. "Yeah, I know it's a little crazy. It was crazy while we were in the middle of it."

Peaches was vaguely aware of the other two animals saying goodbye and joining the dwindling crowd behind her. "And you were all traveling together, on purpose, and trying to return the _human_ baby to the _humans_?"

Diego pulled a face at that but smiled all the same. "By the end, yes. My pack leader was on a revenge mission, so I was guiding Manfred and Sid to our territory under the guise of helping them reach the human camp on the other side of Glacier Pass. I won't speak for them, but everything I said is what I remember happening."

"I never knew." Peaches muttered, feeling a strange guilt come over her. No, secondhand guilt. _She_ wasn't the one who needed to be sorry. "My dad never told me about any of that."

"…Your dad?"

"Yeah, and Uncle Sid." Peaches shook her head, adding in a quiet voice, "They lied to me."

Diego blinked at her, surprised into silence for a moment. Then he was looking at her in disbelief, a sort of wonderstruck smile lighting up his eyes. His voice was soft as he said, "Manfred got remarried?"

"Yeah, he did." Peaches huffed. She was angry, so angry. And definitely betrayed. But Diego's excitement seemed to tilt her perspective for a moment. She wasn't the only one getting unexpected news right now. News that clearly meant a lot to him judging by how his eyes were alight and he was looking at her like he couldn't believe this conversation was happening. Besides, he didn't seem to care that she was coming into this blind. Peaches made an instantaneous decision to calm down.

"How are you they doing? Are they okay?"

"They're fine," Peaches reassured him as Julian skidded up to her side.

He was grinning nervously and clearly ready to keep Peaches from going over whatever edge she was inevitably inching toward. "We really liked your story."

Peaches took his trunk in hers, feeling a familiar pride as she said. "This is Julian. He's my husband. Julian, this is Diego. He knows my dad."

"Oh, cool. We weren't sure if…you know." Julian nodded compulsively as if to fill in his point. "Since I don't think they ever mentioned…?"

"No, they didn't." Peaches frowned a little and looked back at Diego. "Like I said, I had no idea that my dad had done that. And they've never talked about you."

"That's not surprising." Diego shrugged, his reverence from a moment ago disappearing into a good-humored scoff. "I'm sure they're still angry with me for all of that."

"Angry at you?"

"Yeah, they said they weren't going to hold a grudge but…I'd be pretty mad if someone arranged to have me ambushed by their pack. So stupid." Diego shook his head in muted exasperation before looking between them. "Is your herd migrating then?"

Peaches and Julian quickly recounted their wedding and subsequent journey.

"I'm a little surprised Manfred let you guys go by yourselves."

"Dad wasn't that happy about it." Peaches rolled her eyes.

Diego chuckled. "I'm sure he wasn't."

Before Peaches could even begin to think of more questions, because it was obvious that this saber _knew_ her dad, a white saber with black stripes padded over. She glanced at them with sea-blue eyes before turning to Diego with a teasing smirk. "Are you ready to go yet?"

He nodded, standing up and glancing at the two of them, "Peaches, Julian, this is Shira. My mate."

"Hi." Shira looked at them again and then glanced at Diego like she was already beginning to work out who they might be. She didn't seem surprised when he told her why Peaches had approached him.

"So you stopped to see how much he'd mess up the story." Shira summarized, her expression sharp but attentive. She was quick; Peaches could sense that she'd already jumped to several, more than likely correct, conclusions in the last few seconds and had made a decision about how to play this. "Are you two passing through this area?"

"Apparently they've been heading northeast from somewhere back near the ocean." Diego answered as a couple of sabers hopped past them followed by a laughing dire wolf. All three glanced at them and called goodnight before disappearing between the trunks and underbrush of the dark forest.

"Yeah, we're roaming. Kind of an extended honeymoon." Julian gave her a quick smile.

Shira smiled back, brilliant and decisive. "I assume you're stopping here, then. There's a storm coming in tonight. I don't think your parents would want you out wandering in it."

Diego nodded, green eyes alight and ready to talk strategy. "We could go see Brian, I'm sure he'd put them up for the night."

"Or they could just stay with us." Shira shrugged like this option should have been his first idea.

"Really?" Peaches asked excitedly.

" _Really_?" Diego echoed, his expression deadpanning.

"We'd love to stay with you!" Julian did a little bounce.

"We would." Peaches added giddily. She'd come to the conclusion that, most of all, this situation was embarrassing. All of these animals already knew a story that she should have grown up with. She felt behind, and she wanted to know everything.

"But you don't know us." Diego was looking between the three of them like he wasn't sure how they'd gotten to this ridiculous point.

"You just told us who you were."

"You mean the story about how I went after a human baby because my pack leader wanted to kill it and then tried to dispose of your dad when he got in my way?"

"We weren't here for the beginning." Julian waved him off.

"See, they weren't even here for the beginning." Shira chimed in. She'd sat down and looked quite comfortable now that the conversation had taken an uncertain turn.

"I don't know if this is a good idea…"

"Please?" Peaches prodded. "I obviously have a lot of questions, and what's the point of being here if I can't talk to you about any of this?" _My family deliberately hid this from me. I have to know the whole story. I want to know_ you. _And I can't do it if you shove us off on someone else_.

"We saw some tracks in the snow, coming here." Julian cut in. "It looked like a wolf and…maybe a deer? Wherever we stay, is there anything else we need to know?"

"Claire." The sabers said at the same time.

"This area is safe for herbivores." Diego added. "You'd technically be fine anywhere."

"I don't think Manny would like it if he heard we passed up a perfectly good place to stay. Especially with someone he already knows." Julian said dutifully.

"Can we stay?" Peaches asked again and held her breath. It certainly wasn't lost on her that, had things worked out slightly differently, she may have had yet another uncle. And despite the small part of her that was burning through pure anger right now, it wasn't too late.

Diego had one eyebrow quirked, clearly surprised, before finally sighing. "Okay."

Shira smiled at her mate and tilted her head toward the trees. "Let's go get some sleep."

"Awesome." Julian enthusiastically drug out the word, and they began following Shira and Diego into the forest.

"Is this okay with you?" Peaches whispered to him, even though she was fairly certain the sabers could hear her anyway.

"Of course!" Julian whispered back. "This is what roaming is all about. I'm glad we came this way."

"Okay, good." Peaches nodded, taking a deep breath. "Good."

* * *

YAYYYYYYYYYY! We're _finally_ here, and so is Diego! This extra-awesome boy is my favorite character, and I'm so excited to throw him into a bunch of situations that he's not going to like!

In canon, Diego is really concerned about the parts of himself that he lets others see. This attitude seems to come from a mix of factors; and the way he behaves when he butts up against things he doesn't like about himself usually forms the backbone of his character arcs. The Diego in this fic has had to mature through those feelings more quickly, and he's more open about how his life has changed for the better since Half Peak. However, without the ongoing validation of Manny and Sid's friendship, a part of him will be doubtful and lost when it comes to their relationship. He's sure that they haven't really forgiven him, and he's not going to believe otherwise unless it comes directly from them.

I've had this idea for about ten years and finally decided it was time to write it. The characters and events have changed with the movies, but after re-watching the first _Ice Age_ all those years ago, I couldn't shake the feeling that letting Diego be "dead" at the end of the movie and then bringing him back in a sequel would have been a great story.

Thanks for reading, and please review!


	7. Chapter 7

This is a drabble-ish chapter. Timelines are starting to clash, and now we're getting into the good stuff (I think).

So let's goooooo!

* * *

A storm never quite rolled in.

The tremors that had been gently rumbling through the ground during the night hours, and the dark, dark sky, seemed to be extent of the adverse weather.

But Manny still could have sworn that it was colder.

Sid had lit a fire after Ellie retrieved him from the waterfall, and the twins had found their way back all on their own. Nobody had been in the mood to do more than lay around the flames and keep watch on their surroundings.

Now, as a frigid morning broke over the pitch trees and horizon, Manny glanced at Ellie.

Of course she'd been right, and nothing had happened to put them in any danger. Their herd had moved far enough inland at this point that, unless there was a major earthquake, they'd be safe.

She must have already been awake, because Ellie opened her eyes and looked at him. She smiled and sat up a little, reaching for his trunk. "Good morning."

"Morning," he answered gruffly.

"Sweetie, I know that you're worried, but it's going to be okay."

In front of them, the fire was completely out, and the cracked and blackened logs had crumbled down over each other. He could barely see it in the dawn light.

"Why did we let them go roaming again?"

"Because that's what they wanted. Besides, we went roaming when we first got married." She nudged him a little. Manny loved her for her enthusiasm. But it was no match for his stubbornness.

"We had a herd."

Ellie fixed him with a look that said _, Fine, if that's how you want to play this_ , and her voice dropped low. "A herd of two animals actually big enough to fight and three smaller, useless ones?"

"Did you just call the twins useless?" Manny whispered back, cracking a smile without meaning to.

She shrugged slyly. "I love my brothers. But I probably would have been less okay with them accompanying our daughter than staying here with us. If anything, Peaches and Julian are probably safer this way. It balances out, and you know it."

Yeah, she was probably right about that.

"What about Buck?" Manny went on stubbornly. "If he'd have stayed with us…"

"Our neighbors would hate us even more – not that I really care what they think – and instead of having to bathe our infant daughter along with her three uncles after that swamp disaster, we would have probably been rescuing them from the middle of it as they were dramatically sinking."

"Buck would have already had it handled. He was a survivalist."

"And crazy. And…" She tugged at his trunk, "we taught our daughter as much as we could as she grew up. No matter what happens, she knows what to do."

"I know she's not little anymore, but…"

" _And_ not as helpless. We always knew that, one way or another, we wouldn't be protecting her for the rest of her life." Ellie cut him off softly. "We told her everything she needed to know, and we did the best we could. While I'm not happy that we've clearly got some changes coming up, I'm glad that they went. I think it's going to save us from hovering over her until we're too old to do it anymore. Trust me, this is going to be really good for us, too."

Manny had never liked the idea of not being able to hover. And he wasn't sure that Ellie was completely right about the kids' absence benefitting any of them. After all, he'd been "fine" on his own until Sid had come screaming, literally, into his path. But he'd been "fine" because he hadn't known how much better everything was about to get. After he met Sid, and after they'd actually gotten on the route south, it felt like his life was always looking up.

Building a home, instead of wandering away into the unknown in search of nothing, had changed his life. It had changed him. He just wished that, that had been something he'd been able to teach their daughter too.

"Come on, let's go to breakfast." Ellie smiled at him, no doubt seeing the worry and the resistance in his eyes.

"Alright." Manny whispered back and helped her up.

000

When he woke up, the world was blinding.

The whites of the last few days – snowstorms and glaciers and a fire with a center so hot it looked pure white – were nothing to this. He had to blink and blink and blink just to pick out the black-browns of sheer cliff walls on the edges of his vision.

It took more effort than he'd ever suspected himself capable of, just to rise to his feet, and Diego blinked dizzily at the snow shifting off his back and onto the ground. He'd been almost completely buried in it, and that alone made his hackles raise in alarm.

A quick sweep around the immediate area told him exactly how long he'd been out for. All of the warmth and the darkness of their traveling weather had been overrun by the avalanche of snow that had been waiting, all along, in the clouds.

Across from him, under an overhang of rock, an orange coat lay unnervingly still. It was in his peripheral vision, and he didn't bother to actually look and confirm. Because Diego already knew. He hadn't seen Soto die, but he'd felt it in the sound of the icicles hitting their marks. He also knew that the others that should have come back, hadn't. And the two scents he really wanted to pick up, _needed to be able to pick up_ , were buried with the others under the massive drifts piling up along the inside walls of Half Peak.

Diego was alone.

He knew he needed to get moving and get out of here. The longer he waited, the worse the weather was going to get. _Plus_ , his ears perked a little as he began limping toward the mouth of the hollow, the longer he waited here, the less chance he'd have of picking up the tracking markers he needed somewhere else.

If he got a move on, everything may work out. He could at least trail them for a while if he couldn't catch up yet. Plus, that would give him a chance to make sure the other members of his pack weren't following.

Yes, that was a good plan. He'd be there to buffer them from any retaliation, and it would give him a chance to pull together a better apology. He wasn't good at saying sorry, and the self-conscious awkwardness usually came off as callousness. He wanted to get it right so that they'd have no doubt that he had changed his mind about them. About everything in his entire life, in fact.

That was a scary thought. He didn't know how he felt about that.

Were all packs like this? Or just his? And how did he know right from wrong if it was dependent on the pack, or the leader, or an outside influence? In this case, an influence that called him annoyingly-clever names and made an effort to be friendly for no reason.

Or maybe Soto had been justified in wanting revenge but went about it wrong. Had he set his sights on the human leader, things would have been different. Better, perhaps? It would have been fairer. No jumps or waterfalls. No babies. No mammoth and sloth…

Would that have been better for everyone involved?

His mind was creating fragments of thoughts, always more focused on what he was sensing through his nose and ears instead of the whirling snowfall inside his head. At this point, that was probably for the best.

His paws sunk too deep into the drifts as he rounded the last of the twisting corners and headed for the narrow pass that would take him down to the valley floor.

When he got to the entrance, he lifted his head from its bowed position against the wind. It was a steep, steep path and completely snowed in up to his chest. It would probably take all of his energy just to fight his way down it. But there was no other way to get to the valley floor without doubling back for miles.

He'd passed out for too long and now he'd run out of alternatives.

Why had he been running out of so many alternatives lately?

He frowned at the narrow crevice. They'd obviously found it and made their way down. There was no other way to Glacier Pass from here, and he'd have known if they were still wandering around the sheer cliffs and gullies of Half Peak. That meant they had a fighting chance of reaching the humans on time. Depending on how far along the small band of people had gotten, maybe he could wait for them on this side of the Pass. They'd have to come back through to go south.

Time to pull himself together and get this done. If Manfred and Sid were anywhere close, he'd know. Catch up; work it out from there.

Diego slowly began to climb his way over and into the drifts. It was going to be a long way down.

He deliberately didn't think about his shoulder.

000

"It's going to be okay." There was a soft voice in his ear and a shift, and then Shira's face was right next to his. He'd know this sensation anywhere. He didn't open his eyes, but she knew he hadn't been asleep. "Besides, Brian's got enough to do. Nobody wants him to get distracted right now."

They couldn't afford to. As the leader of the local mammoth herd, Brian had decided it was time to alert the area. He'd been working on putting together a meeting of sorts for half the year, sending runners far and wide to ask for input, safe haven, news of other places.

Because their world was slowly crumbling apart at the fault lines. First the intense snowstorms that reminded Diego of days on his own, fighting through hunger and pain; the slow-moving glaciers that kept crisscrossing their territory; the tremors of shifting land; and the foreboding that this was only a shadow of what was to come.

They couldn't move, though. Not from here. This was home.

"We did the right thing." Shira added when he didn't say anything.

"No, you did the right thing."

Shira smiled smugly when he opened his eyes just enough to see her. "You wanted them to stay, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"There is when Manfred gets ahold of me and wants to know why I'm deliberately involving myself in his family again."

"Without you he wouldn't have the one he's got." She mumbled peevishly and shifted a little so that they were lying next to each other, but their heads were further apart.

Diego just frowned and looked over to where Julian and Peaches were still sleeping. They were wrapped up in each other, content and self-assured.

They clearly didn't understand the moral of last night's story.

Diego was an unnecessary side trip on their family's route. Without him, Manfred and Sid would have found the baby, delivered him home, and been on their way south. Or, without him chasing the human mother over that waterfall, they wouldn't have even needed to do that much.

Either way, they'd clearly moved on, and he had too. They were more than likely happy, and Diego certainly wasn't complaining. If he missed them sometimes…well that was what he got for instigating this big of a life upheaval. At first, he'd been so sure that the miles and miles of snow would lead to an eventual reunion and an eventual return to a pseudo-normalcy that would echo pack life in most ways. It had been all he knew, after all.

Because the terse, often tense, times they'd had together as a "herd" were almost an equivalent to the way it felt to wake up in a pack day after day.

Of course, now he knew that pack life and herd life were two very different things, and he often imagined, especially after moving here, that Manfred and Sid were getting along happily in a friendship of ongoing trust and affection. They'd worked hard for it, like most of the animals Diego had met these last few years. Friendship and tiered pack structure weren't really compatible concepts. He'd been used to distrust, passive aggressiveness, and often all-out aggressiveness.

After being out of a pack and on his own for so long, learning about Shira's life with Gutt, a mess he'd become all-too-familiar with, had been eye opening. She was so stubborn about seeing what she wanted to in her leader, and it had taken her a long time to come down off of that environment and realize what he'd been trying to tell her all along – she'd walked from one pack straight into another. Deep down, Diego knew if he'd had the chance, he would have unknowingly done exactly as she had.

There was a change in atmosphere, and Diego immediately knew the mammoths were awake, probably even before they did, and as Julian, and then Peaches, squirmed a little and opened their eyes, Diego nudged at Shira with his nose. Best to give them some privacy.

She cracked an eye and gave him a sarcastic look before closing it again and yawning.

"Good morning." Julian was cooing to his wife from across the clearing in an unexpectedly quiet voice, and Peaches mumbled something back to him. They exchanged a few more whispered words that sounded vaguely like "I love you" and "How are you?"

Then the mammoths were looking at them, and Diego raised one eyebrow with a smirk, nodding to them in greeting.

Peaches grinned and stood up quickly, pulling Julian unsteadily to his feet with her. "Morning! We're ready to get started."

Diego just stared at her for a second in confused surprise. "Started?"

"Exploring the area!" Julian chimed in, yanking on Peaches' trunk in his excitement and turning to her for agreement.

She nodded enthusiastically, looking back to them with this big, bright light in her eyes. Next to her, Julian's expression was similar.

"Yeah, we talked about it, and we want to just…you know…wander around. Maybe with you guys. You could show us stuff!"

They'd said all of that to each other just now? In the looks and the good mornings and the meaningless little questions?

Shira was blinking at them a little too, but then she just nodded coolly and got to her feet with a determined edge to her movements. "Sounds good to me. I'm going to get some food; I can show you a place with your kind of food if you'd like."

"Yes! I'm sooo hungry." Julian bunched up his feet in a way that Diego was beginning to realize was his unconscious signal that he was beyond trying to contain himself.

"So uh, what do you guys eat for breakfast?" Next to him, Peaches looked like she thought she was being sneaky.

Diego just rolled his eyes dramatically and tilted his head toward Shira. She wanted to invite them places and push him into uncomfortable situations? Then she could answer some of the questions.

"Normally we'd hunt, but all the carnivores that live around here catch fish." She ignored his look.

"Oh," both mammoths said in unison.

It worried him that neither had really thought that far ahead. Had Manfred told them anything at all about predators?

Diego gave them a stern look in an attempt to convey exactly what he thought of their unpreparedness. "This whole area is safe for herbivores. The local mammoth herd and saber pack have an agreement. As long as you're still within the pack's territory, you don't have anything to worry about."

"So when you're not around here, you go hunting," Peaches prodded, oblivious to his chiding.

"Well…no…" Whatever Manfred had or hadn't said, Diego should have known this was going to be a question at some point. He'd been so caught up in worrying about them being here, he hadn't really moved on to considering how they should _deal_ with them being here. Stupid.

"The whole Half Peak thing kind of ruined his appetite," Shira drawled before he could think that far ahead.

"That makes sense," Peaches nodded, mollified.

"Let's just go to breakfast," Diego suggested. He was about as hungry as Julian seemed to be, and there was an unease growing in the back of his mind that Peaches' questions were just the very tip of a rather large iceberg. "There are plenty of trees around the area of the lake, so you guys should be able to find enough to eat."

"We'll see about exploring after that," Shira added as they all turned to go.

Both mammoths gave a childish squeal, and Diego fell into step behind his mate with the sinking feeling that an old kind of trouble was brewing on the edge of their arrival. He wasn't sure that launching himself in front of a pack leader would be enough to stop it this time.

* * *

Shira and Diego are such a lovely couple, and we're going to see more of their early relationship in later chapters: AKA when it _wasn't_ so lovely. Without the life or death circumstances that define their encounters in _Continental Drift_ , their attitudes are going to tend toward animosity. They have more time to stew in pre-love "hate" for each other, and it's going to get tricky when Shira has the ongoing influence of Gutt clashing with what Diego's telling her.

For context, the lake that this community is situated on is part of the Great Lakes in the United States, and it would be a perfect place for Gutt to come when he felt like getting some terrorizing out of his system. I have feelings about him and his motivations, and we'll _definitely_ be getting into some of those later.

For now, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please R&R!


	8. Chapter 8

There's some violence and a bit of gore in this chapter. Just a heads up.

* * *

It was the lowest light of early morning.

A quiet walk through the still trees had led him here. The shadows and the sliver of sun cresting the farthest horizon were normal sights, and soon enough there would be shifting pinks and blues and yellows across the leafless sapling trees as the sun traveled skyward.

A snap out of the ordinary, and he whirled as something too heavy hit him from behind, sending his twisting body painfully into the ground. His bones seemed to crunch under the weight of this something, and in the darkness, his night vision kept mistaking the sky overhead for the mass on top of him.

It bit down, and once it found a vulnerable place to sink its teeth, the sharpness tightened until he couldn't have shoved the thing off even if he'd had the strength of a mammoth.

But the creature made the mistake of exposing its face, and in a swift raking motion, claws swept across the nose and the hold released.

He was on his feet in a moment, more out of habit than a readiness to retaliate, and he could feel all the parts of himself that had been split open as he sunk into a fighting stance. He wasn't as low to the ground as he wanted to be, and his body was pulsing in runaway distraction.

That first hit had compromised any advantages he may have had, and he was barely in position when the thing lunged again. But he didn't wait for it to close the distance, and half a second later they met halfway. He aimed low in the darkness, searching and grabbing for anything soft that would inflict enough damage to give him the upper hand.

Before he could find a good place to really sink in, he felt something rip across his shoulders, the force pulling him down to the ground under the other body's weight.

Flat on his back, he knew before it happened that the next target was his throat, and he risked letting one of his paws leave its hold on the creature's side and come up to protect his neck just in time. The impact of what must have been monstrous jaws snapped his wrist with little trouble, and he knew that if he hadn't blocked it, that would have been an almost instantaneous kill.

He punched up with his other paw, pushing the invisible face away yet again, and getting one hind leg under his opponent. The claws had unhinged enough for him to throw it a good few feet away from him, and it was still on its side as he rolled over and slid to his feet.

Not bothering to get into stance this time, he swiftly loped the few steps it took to get close enough before throwing himself on top of it, using both front paws to claw repeatedly at whatever they made contact with.

For a few moments, he wasn't sure who was getting more damage, but the whimpering that began after a good five swipes made him focus harder, jealously holding the upper hand until the creature finally managed to attach itself to his injured front paw.

The next few seconds seemed to happen more quickly than he'd known time could go as he was thrown over top of it and down to his side. There was no rising fast enough this time. It was coming at him again and finding purchase in the top of his neck, tightening and making to wring it as if it hadn't been a few feet away a second ago.

Desperately, he dug into the ground, refusing to give it the momentum to shake him, and once the thing believed it had an unbreakable hold on him, he flipped, coming down hard on both of their backs with the creature underneath him.

This was the last chance to end this before that thing did, and he knew what he needed to do. As soon as it broke its hold, he rolled off to stand just to the side of it, swerving immediately to bring the front of his body up and then down as hard as he could.

Thankfully, his paws met softness, and he heard bones cracking in exaggerated degrees as his weight pushed them down.

A moment of silence as the fight abruptly ended, and the thing heaved air under his blow.

Then it lashed upward, grabbing him bodily again and throwing him a few feet away, hard, onto his stomach.

He heard it leave just as his eyes fell closed.

000

The lake was huge, and the change in the atmosphere around it spoke of large weather forces constantly clashing there.

There weren't many animals around, but still more than what Peaches had been expecting. The lush trees that rimmed the shoreline did indeed provide more than enough foliage for breakfast, and Shira and Diego were currently standing in water halfway up their legs, searching for fish in the shallows.

Peaches tried not to be obvious as she glanced at them every now and then.

The two sabers weren't talking to one another, but just the way they were standing indicated that they were a couple: the unconscious pull toward each other in their posture, the comfortable synchronization of swiping claws into the water, the brief glances when the other wasn't looking.

Meanwhile, the other animals in the background went about their business as if they were used to eating alongside carnivores.

Peaches shoved a trunkful of leaves into her mouth, her gaze going to Julian who was chewing around a huge clump and eyeing her from a few feet away. _Just a couple more minutes._

The storm Shira had warned about left many of the trees dusted with snow and weighed down with little icicles. Her and Diego's cozy clearing was underbrush-thick and shielded them from most of the snow, but there were plenty of drifts around the edges of the lake.

When the sabers were downing the last of their catch, Julian turned to her, shoulders hunched against the lake behind them. _Now?_

Peaches took a deep breath and nodded. _Now._

They pattered their way over to the edge of the frosty water, trying not to look too obvious. Diego and Shira saw them coming and trotted over.

"Hey guys, how was your breakfast?" Peaches tried to ignore the little waver in her voice. There was a small nagging fear in her mind that insisted they weren't going to pull this off, but she kept going. "I can't believe this place. It's amazing."

"It is!" Julian chirped from behind her shoulder, and she could see him adjust his position out of the corner of her eye. Then he rubbed at his head a little, grimacing as if it was hurting him.

"So you wanted to be shown around?" Shira asked, seemingly anxious to be good to her promise of a tour.

"Yes!" Peaches forced an excited smile, counting down for what she knew was about to happen.

"We do, we really d…d…do…achoo!" Julian's fake sneeze sounded impressively real, and on the out-breath he stumbled a little as if dizzy. Unfortunately, he'd thrown his head too far down, and his trunk got too close to a nearby drift. A huge explosion of snow flew up and out around them until they were all shielding their faces from the little ice particles.

He took a huge breath in, accidently sucking up some of the ice particles, and then sneezed again.

"Are you okay?" Peaches asked as sincerely as she could.

"Yeah, just a little…uh…" Julian tugged a little on his trunk, but after a few seconds, they could all see that it was stuck to a lump of ice beneath the snow. The second sneeze must have been real, and whatever snot had come with it had frozen to the ice. That hadn't been the plan. "Just a second."

He closed his eyes and tugged a little, groaning some more as his trunk stayed stuck.

"Maybe you shouldn't do that…" Peaches started to reach for him.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Julian stumbled a little but stopped. The look he turned on her was obvious. _I'm fine here. Just go._ And then he jumped back into their pre-determined story. "I must be getting sick."

Peaches immediately swung back to Diego and Shira. "He should probably rest for a while."

Julian nodded helplessly. "She's right."

Peaches made sure to look directly at Diego as he frowned between them. "Would you still give me a tour?"

"But somebody should still probably stay with me!" Julian added quickly.

By this point, one of Shira's eyebrows was cocked, and she was watching the proceedings with an amused smile. "I'll stay. You're going to need help getting yourself out of that."

Julian laughed nervously and gave one more futile tug on his trunk.

"Great!" Peaches turned to Diego, holding her breath.

He met her eyes directly, staring back with a stony glint to his features. "Let's go."

000

It wasn't much of a tour. All told, she did feel a little bad about this – this being _Operation Insta-Sickness_ – but she'd always been one to fight fire with fire.

Peaches kept pace as Diego led them in a random direction away from the lake, and after a few tense minutes it became apparent that he was more interested in addressing the mammoth in the clearing than actually showing her around.

That was fine. This was what she really wanted out of him anyway. Their plan had worked.

"So…I wanted to ask you…"

"Enough," Diego cut her off. "You two are ridiculous, and you're not fooling either of us."

"We don't need to," Peaches snapped. "I just needed to get you alone to talk. And by the way, we already did fool you because look what we're doing. And Julian didn't even have to fake faint."

"What can you possibly want to know?" Diego growled back. He was cracking a little at the edges, like ice at the first stages of a brief thaw.

She just needed to find the biggest fault line and stomp all over it until it became a chasm.

"I already told you the whole story last night…well, almost everything. But I'm assuming you already know whatever horrible thing happened to your father before he met me."

She did. His first family had been killed by humans, and yet he'd willingly followed after them to return something he himself would never truly get back. And he'd dragged Uncle Sid into it with him.

"I just want to know about my dad. Really know about him. Honestly, this whole thing makes me question who he is," she finally sighed when the silence had stretched far longer than she'd intended.

"You do know we were only together for three days, right? And I was only actively helping them for about an hour." He was hesitating, and he didn't want her to pick up on it. He'd been hesitating since she'd approached him the night before. When Julian had first whispered in her ear late last night, and they'd begun discussing how best to do this, Peaches had worried that there would be too many ways it could go wrong.

Diego seemed determined to try as many of them as possible.

"It bothers you, doesn't it? That they didn't tell me about you because they're upset."

Diego had been steadily inching in front of her as they walked, but he slowed at the words. His posture sagged a little, and she heard him sigh. Peaches imagined him closing his eyes for a moment, and she could practically feel them open again as he squared up and said, "I don't like the fact that they're angry, but no, it actually doesn't bother me."

He turned so that he was staring back to her. "Your dad is who he is, and at the end of the day, Manfred knows, just as well as I do, that us siding with each other one time doesn't change the fact that carnivores and herbivores don't generally get along. Aside from any residual anger at me, he probably didn't want you getting dangerous ideas. I promise that he didn't keep this from you to hurt you."

"But-"

"Please just trust me?"

"Fine." She grumbled.

"I know that you're upset, but Manfred was just looking out for you. I'm sure he hasn't actually changed that much."

"He saved a human baby. He was reckless and adventurous…and _fun_ …and cool…" Peaches faltered. She hadn't known that was where she was going with that, and the sudden reality of it hit her hard. It wasn't like she had ever considered that she _didn't_ know her father. Finding out that he had whole sides to his personality and a past that contradicted everything that she _had_ thought, not only scared her, it made her wish that he'd let her see all of it. She wished that she'd gotten to know the same mammoth that Diego had.

Did that make her selfish? She knew deep down that Julian's silence about his past bothered her an unnecessary amount, and now her dad's was beginning to drag her into a possessive anger that felt ugly. She was forcing an unwilling stranger to give her information about that past after all.

"I wouldn't necessarily say Manfred was "cool." That was all me." Diego's voice was soft, a quiet nudge to say he was still there and the conversation was still going.

"I…I want to understand him better-" Peaches paused, still trying to pull her thoughts into a coherent gut feeling. They refused, and after another moment of thought she gave up. Instead, she looked back up at Diego. "I'm sorry. I have a lot of feelings about all of this, and…it's hard to imagine him like that. I don't…like it."

She made a face.

To her surprise, Diego nodded a little. "It's hard to let go sometimes."

It was.

After another second of heavy silence, Diego sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. "I can't help much more with Manfred himself, but I'm sure you've got more questions about our time together. I wouldn't want to cut this too short and risk your husband's fake cold getting worse. So what else?"

"Really?" Peaches perked up at the unexpected offer.

"Yeah, fine. Just tell me what you want to know."

She squealed. "Everything. About them and you and what happened. Oh, and you and Shira, and why you guys live here, and how you got here…"

"I thought this was mostly about your dad?"

Peaches shrugged, smiling a little at his confusion. "I want to know you too. You know, if you'd be willing to tell me."

She'd found it. The gaping hole he'd been circling around. The open shock on Diego's face confirmed it.

"I…" He struggled a little bit to pull himself back together, and Peaches tried not to look like she was holding her breath. Finally, still clearly at a loss, Diego nodded. "Um, okay. Sure. Uh, what first?"

Peaches grinned, unable to stop herself and crossed the distance between them so that they were face to face and had to start talking immediately. "Will you start from the beginning of the story again?" She asked excitedly. "We came in just before the ice slides, so I don't know what happened before that. Please, just…tell me everything."

000

"So you've really been to the ocean?"

"Yeah, I spent a lot of time on it."

"On it?"

"I used to be a pirate."

" _You_ were a _pirate_?"

Shira had gotten Julian's trunk unstuck within a matter of seconds after Peaches and Diego disappeared for their one-on-one time. But she'd given no indication that she wanted to go after them.

In fact, Julian hadn't had a chance to do much more than take a few deep, careful breaths through his newly-released trunk when she'd turned to him with a satisfied smile. "So, now that they're out of the way, tell me more about roaming."

With that unspoken agreement reached, they settled a little farther away from the shore of the lake to talk.

Just as he was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Shira had been a _pirate_ , a lone saber materialized out of the tree line. They looked up as he came toward them. His eyes were shadowy and tense, a harbinger. "Shira."

000

No one really knew what had happened.

Merle had been alone, walking through one area of his territory, and a couple of his pack members found him on their rounds what must have been hours after it happened.

He'd still been bleeding, cut up in so many places that they weren't even sure how best to move him at first.

The fight had obviously been violent. Whatever had attacked their pack leader had been attacked right back in his characteristically ferocious style. But it hadn't been enough to allow him to walk away from the confrontation.

Of course, the first thought on all of their minds was _Gutt_ , but he hadn't been seen in years. And they were too far away from the lake for him to have sailed in and snuck all the way up into the hilly western forest.

And even if he had, why Merle?

As the leader to a pack of twenty-five sabers – a large number that had repeatedly drawn criticism over the years – he was close to impenetrable. Even for an older pack leader, he could easily take out anyone who stood in his way.

The walk back to the pack's main sleeping area was too long and too slow. By the time they were entering the far edges of the clearing's smoothed dirt ground, the saber carrying his leader could feel the blood dripping through his thick fur.

They were noticed seconds later, and a moment after that, the pack's second in command came bounding over to them in a panic. "What the…" He caught sight of Merle. " _What happened to him_?"

"We don't know." The second saber that had been following sighed as the other murmured something about them helping get Merle to the ground.

"Should we send out some scouts, Jackson?" the first saber suggested once Merle had been carefully rolled off of his back to a rather uncomfortable-looking position on the ground.

"Right." The second in command nodded, squeezing his eyes a moment later in not-so-subtle frustration with himself before adding, "But not scouts." He thought for a moment and then spun to address the fifteen or so sabers that were already in the clearing talking, napping, or lazily sparring with one another. They'd quickly caught on that something was wrong, though, and by the time Jackson was addressing them, most were at attention and slowly acquiring looks of horror at what they saw behind him. "Something has happened. Two runners to Brian, everyone else, groups of three or four and canvas the area. I want everyone made aware of this, and I want the attackers found."

"I'll show you where Oliver and I found him." The second saber, Lyle, offered quickly once the rest of them had begun organizing themselves to set out.

"Right- oh, wait. No. Take Cam and show him." Jackson spun to Oliver. "You and I will stay here with him."

Lyle nodded, calling to the third in command before he could leave with one of the groups. As soon as Cam was at his side and briefly filled in, they took off back into the forest.

Jackson turned to where Merle was folded into himself on the ground, Oliver standing behind him looking taxed and afraid. Their leader hadn't moved since they'd gotten back, probably hadn't moved in hours, and he was sunk down into stillness so deep, it pulled everything in the clearing down with it.

It felt strange to nudge at him, searching out all the worst gashes and still-seeping cuts. Most were deep and all were ugly. And whatever, or whoever, had done this channeled their attacks where it counted. It was almost like…

"He was the prey." Jackson stepped back suddenly as Oliver nosed at Merle's side, trying to get a better view of the sharp claw marks that cut across his belly. For all of his injuries, he had, in fact, won the fight.

He would be dead if he hadn't. Those hits were meant to kill; all of them. And they were meant to be efficient take-downs. This hadn't been a fight; it had been a struggle for survival. What Jackson had been half-assuming was the result of some monstrous, faceless carnivore, was really a failed pursuit of food.

It stilled him, just as Oliver raised his head to stare at him in surprise. "What attacked him then?"

There was an empty silence before Jackson had to shake his head.

000

"Of course, you'll have to retell all of this to Julian." Peaches felt like her face was frozen in its smile.

"What?" Diego whined, but she could tell it was more out of pretend crankiness than anything. She knew the retelling would tire them both out. But she was so glad she'd asked. "You two couldn't have factored that into your stupid little divide and conquer plan? I don't want to have to tell it over again!"

"You do it all the time!"

"Yeah, but not the full, full version that you got!"

And she had gotten the _full_ version. Diego had acquiesced with everything she'd wanted to know and more.

She was floating.

Before Peaches could tease him more, which seemed to be the dynamic they'd settled into over the last few hours, there was shouting. They were just stepping into the main clearing on their way back to Julian and Shira, and Diego stopped them short of a somewhat large group of animals gathered a few feet away. No one noticed them, and they watched in alarmed silence for a few moments as the small group of sabers and half dozen other animals talked over each other in unbridled panic.

At least until a new voice began insisting on attention, and the small crowd parted just enough for a skinny little animal to make his way out of their throng to face them. He gestured emphatically with his paws, "…and that's how I know the attacker was a homicidal dino bird!"

"Yeah, I bet it flew straight out of your brain dingbat!" A male deer was sneering, and voices began climbing over each other once more.

"Diego, what's going on?"

"Ugh. Buck."


	9. Chapter 9

Wally was the first in the group to notice them standing there. The deer nodded at Diego first before glancing once at Peaches and jerking his head to tell them to come closer.

Diego walked a little in front of her as they approached, wordlessly keeping Peaches just behind him. Buck wasn't dangerous – Diego doubted he'd ever even used the "dinosaur tooth" he had fashioned into a human-style knife – but if any of them were going to get any coherent information in a reasonable amount of time, the weasel needed to focus. This wasn't the time for introductions.

The sabers, all from the local pack, seemed to be the most upset, and when Leia saw him, she stepped forward with a look of panic that reminded him of when Gutt and Co. were still making unexpected visits. "Diego, it's Merle."

Oh, great. "What happened?"

"Dino birds!" Buck whirled around with his paws thrown in the air as if this were already the agreed-upon answer.

Diego glanced at him for half a second and then back to Leia. "Okay, what actually happened?"

The information was jumbled, and the base facts that they _absolutely_ knew, were minimal. As they filled him in on the attack, fear seemed to be pushing the boundaries of actual evidence quite a bit. Because if it was true that it had been a stranger – because who else would be dumb enough to attack an experienced pack leader and expect to win? – then the attack wasn't targeted. That meant the animal was a threat to anyone they came across, which was more than cause for panic.

He wasn't sure he believed the part about Merle being prey, though. That was almost too far-fetched. And it didn't help that Buck's answer – dinosaurs, always, always dinosaurs – was the only one that made any logical sense. Of course, dinosaurs weren't real which made his entire case fall apart. But his thoughts were more cohesive overall than the other guesses.

Just as the weasel in question was getting into an argument with a mammoth from Brian's herd about the seasonal patterns of dino birds and the likelihood of them "coming to the surface," Diego turned back to the four sabers. They were currently an almost-amusing mix of stress and annoyance. "Has anyone told Isaiah yet?"

All four of them looked at each other. Obviously not.

"You guys need to let him know. More than likely whoever it was has left the area, and if they went east, his pack is directly in their path."

"Unless the creature went back underground," Buck added, popping into their conversation just as the mammoth was saying, "…are you suggesting that dino birds _migrate_?" He ignored that and looked at them grimly. "In that case you won't catch him; I'll have to see what I can do."

"Your creatures aren't smart enough to get through Merle's territory without being spotted, genius," a glyptodon snorted.

"They're not _mine_ ," Buck quickly corrected him. "I just live with them. And they did, that's the problem!"

Diego rolled his eyes and glanced at Peaches to make sure she was still doing okay in light of this news, but beyond the pervasive worry building between all of them, her expression was impassive.

"Do what you need to do Buck," Wally cut in before the argument could get worse.

The one-eyed weasel straightened in determination. "I will. I promise."

"…Okay, well, thanks in advance for your effort. Let's go Peaches." Diego turned, nodding for her to follow. She did, with one last look at Buck who was already on to saying "It could have been a different kind of dino too…"

"Who is that?" She whispered as they made their way out of earshot.

"Buck. He thinks he lives underground with dinosaurs."

"Wait, really?"

"He's crazy, just ignore him."

"Oh, well actually Diego I don't know if he's actually all that…"

"This is definitely not what we needed right now." There were so many variables, it was hard to plot through options without going off on a million different tangents.

Meanwhile, Peaches was stumbling along behind him. In the back of his mind she sounded out of breath as she said, "Shouldn't we at least hear him out?"

"What? Oh, Buck? No, a dinosaur didn't attack Merle. It's not possible." But he'd hand it to Buck for recognizing how dangerous the creature had to be to take down an established pack leader.

That brought up another point that he didn't really want to think about. Merle had purposefully chosen a young second in command to train up, and now the entire pack was about to be on Jackson's inexperienced shoulders.

"I'm really not sure that you should just…"

For all of Diego's feelings about packs and leadership, there was no upshot to this situation. "Jackson didn't send anyone to Isaiah. That kid… I mean, don't get me wrong he's got a lot of potential. He'll be a good leader someday, but this affects everyone in the area. Isaiah is a massive pain, but he's close enough that someone should have told him immediately."

"Diego!"

"Huh?" He blinked, stopping as Peaches reached out to get his attention. She huffed, glancing around like she wasn't sure how they'd gotten there, and then shook her head at him.

"In plain language, what do we need to do?"

"'We?'" Diego repeated, pulled from his thoughts to Peaches' anxious face. Right. The two mammoths he was suddenly in charge of.

 _No, they're Manfred's kids. And grown adults._

"I suggest we look for our mates," he answered after a quick reevaluation of the situation and a simultaneous attempt to figure out exactly how to put his paw down in a way that would make her listen to him. "And there is no 'we' right now. You two are staying out of this."

They _weren't_ his kids, but Manfred would kill him if he let anything happen to them.

"We can be helpful," Peaches muttered as they resumed walking, but after a few minutes, asked. "Do you think they're okay?"

"Of course. Shira is the toughest saber I've ever met. Even after she left the crew and decided to stay here, she didn't lose her edge." Not like him. He'd still maintain that he was a remorseless assassin when it came right down to it, but the steps to get to that point had stretched over the years. Anymore, it took a lot to make him spring unthinkingly to action. He'd paid for it too many times in the past.

Shira was all about brute force though, and even after years of marriage, he was still amazed at how she was able to channel that pure action into making sure her will was done.

But this wasn't their fight. At least, not yet. "We're going to stay out of this as much as we can."

"You're not going to go after this thing?"

"We know almost nothing about this situation. And I'll bet you anything that it's not a thing or a dinosaur. It's a someone, more than likely a predator. And it's not our business. It happened to Merle's pack, and they'll deal with it."

"They'll find them," Peaches confirmed, but she seemed to be searching for something besides reassurance. Diego wasn't ready to ask what it was.

"Yes, in a few days this will all be over," he said instead, adding, "Don't worry."

"I'm not," she murmured, and they walked in contemplative silence until there was the heavy sound of mammoth footsteps, and Julian was bounding his way out of the trees towards them.

"There you are!" He exclaimed, looking at Peaches first and then to Diego. "Um, did you hear?"

"Yeah, and Buck is here," Peaches answered before Diego could. There was something significant about the way that she said Buck's name, and a few moments later, Julian's eyes took on a bit of a knowing look that Diego didn't like.

"Okay, anyway," he said flatly as the two mammoths stared at each other in not-so-subtle understanding. "Julian, I'm assuming Shira stayed with you this morning?"

The mammoth immediately dropped Peaches' gaze and turned to him. "Yeah, she went to go see the guy who got hurt, and I went with her."

"You did?" Julian was in the know then, and no doubt knew the status of the situation better than he did. "Is he still unconscious?"

"No. And he wants to talk to you." Shira's voice proceeded her as she stepped out of the trees Julian had just emerged from. Her blue eyes were serene, self-assured. Much different than the tenacious, end-of-her-rope glint that used to sit behind them during her pirate days. Maybe the situation was more under control than Leia thought.

She gave him a _We'll talk later_ look, and he nodded. "I'll meet you back at the clearing then."

"Good, you can tell me who Isaiah is." Peaches said as he began to walk away.

" _Oh_." Shira laughed to herself, smiling roguishly at him as he walked past. "That sounds like a perfect idea."

000

The woods surrounding the pack's main sleeping area were dead silent, and Diego kept his ears perked for sounds. While the parameters of the pack's deal allowed him to come and go in their territory so long as it was on friendly terms, he didn't trust all of them not to take it into their heads to haze him a bit.

It hadn't happened yet, but some of the wilder sabers were tricksters at best, full-blown forces of nature at worst. Then again, that's what happened when membership reached high levels: control unraveled quickly.

He could only imagine what Merle wanted. The two of them had butted heads enough times in the past to justify permanent animosity between them. Diego hadn't been able to keep himself silent about the absurdity of having a pack this big, and Merle half-heartedly pretended as though Diego's betrayal of Soto was an overarching betrayal of all pack leaders, everywhere.

But the older saber didn't _really_ mean it.

In fact, much to Diego's petty annoyance, he'd been nothing but a good neighbor these past few years.

When Diego hit the edges of the clearing, he raised his head a little higher. Merle didn't generally demand formalities from his own pack underlings, and Diego had all-out refused to be obsequious when they'd first met, so he wouldn't take a bowed head as submission. But habit still made him conscious of the fact he was approaching a pack leader. One he didn't want getting even the hint of an idea that Diego was beneath him.

His posture stiffened as he stepped into the clearing. Merle was watching for him from the other side with his head already raised and waiting. A few feet away, Jackson was laying facing his leader. When he turned and noticed Diego, he stood with a look of relief.

"How do you feel?" Diego asked as he came to a stop in front of them.

"Terrible," Merle answered steadily. He was strong as mountain rock though and stared back coolly as Diego momentarily took in the damage. Gashes were just about everywhere along his body, and his bright orange fur was almost completely red around his sides and back. The whites around his mouth and paws were much the same.

"What was it?" Diego finally asked because he honestly had no idea what could do this kind of damage. He'd been half-sure it was just a saber that had gotten really, really lucky. Now, he couldn't imagine Merle sustaining this much damage from any carnivore that he knew of.

He could see the answer on the older pack leader's face before he said it. "I don't know. It was dark, and the…thing was dark too. But it moved fast, I know that. It's long gone now. There's no reason to believe the area isn't secure, and I don't think it will return." With that, he cast a glance at Jackson that was clearly meant to be point-scoring from whatever conversation they'd been having earlier. Then he looked back to Diego with a different, more curious, expression in his eyes. "We're all safe. Including the young mammoth that arrived with your mate."

He nodded once. "She has a shadow right now."

"An incredibly loud shadow." Merle obviously knew something was up, but Diego could also tell that he wasn't exactly sure who Julian was yet. For all the rampant feelings and opinions that this area saw on a good day, Diego didn't see any harm in keeping it that way for now. It wasn't like Merle would have cause to meet them in the near future; more than likely they'd continue east once this was cleared up.

Which reminded him. Diego looked to Jackson. "I told Leia that somebody needed to warn Isaiah. He should know this happened."

"Did one of them go, then?"

"I'm assuming so."

Jackson nodded, and after a moment of thought, Diego added, "Let me know if you need help with tracking. I want to know sooner rather than later exactly what's going on. And I can't imagine it would be difficult to pick up a trail."

"We will." Jackson answered immediately, his open, earnest expression reinforcing the likelihood that they'd be taking that offer soon. "Thank you."

Next to him, Merle was nodding slightly with the appraising look he got when he was about to make an _Important-Pack-Leader-Decision_. Diego just quirked his eyebrow in annoyance. Soto had been self-important too, but he'd had the decency not to be quite as obvious about it.

"Jackson, go check on rounds. Diego and I need to talk alone."

"We do?" Diego drawled as Jackson looked between them in surprise for a few seconds.

"Are you su-… I mean, yes sir." The younger saber pulled himself together rather quickly and nodded submissively. They watched him steal into the trees immediately afterward.

Diego looked back to Merle. "Need I remind you that's your second in command you just sent off? I've had enough of repeating information for the day."

"I want you to lead my pack."

"You…you want me to what?"

Merle looked him dead in the eye, completely serious and completely un-self-important. "I want you to take over my pack while I recover."

"…Are you insane?"

"I need your help." Merle was still giving him that serious, and unnervingly _sure_ , look that meant that everything he'd left behind him was suddenly making a reappearance and there was nothing he could do about it. "There's no way that I can lead right now."

"You barely even lead when you're completely healthy. Your pack is too big to…" Diego cut himself off with a frustrated growl. Now wasn't the time to get sidetracked. Not while all the reasons, the _good reasons_ , why this was a no-go rushed his mind. "You know exactly why I left – didn't have a _choice_ but to leave – the first time. I'm not going back to that. I _don't want to_."

"So run it the way you want." Merle started to shrug and then winced slightly. The expression was gone almost as soon as he did it. "I know you'll do a good job. And I know you'll do what's best for my packmates."

"This isn't about them. Or you." The practical part of his brain kept trying to get his attention, insisting on telling him that Merle was hiding how much pain he was really in. That he was well aware that Diego wouldn't like this but was asking anyway. And now that he thought about it, one of Merle's front paws was lying at a weird angle, as if broken. He desperately tried to ignore all of this. "I don't appreciate the offer, and I'm not taking it."

"I need a leader."

"So get Jackson to do it. It's his job."

"Jackson is still in training." Merle answered, the calm confidence had eroded slightly into patient anticipation. "You're right, this pack is big. Too big for him to handle by himself right now. I need someone who has the experience to take over completely. We both know it's you."

"This isn't a good time." Diego said before he could stop himself.

"Do you really want to get into that right now?"

"No…but it's still true." He could barely keep up with Peaches and her questions. At the moment, making sure that those two were shepherded safely on their way was too important to brush aside.

Merle sighed wistfully and looked away a little too dramatically. "I understand. I'll just have Jackson take over then. Like you said, it's his job. He's still young and inexperienced, but he wants to do a good job. He'll probably rise to the challenge. Besides, I can't imagine there will be any more unforeseen disasters happening in the next few weeks, what with more and more animals coming to the area and the weather getting worse. I'm sure it'll be fine. He knows what he's doing. Kind of."

There was a heavy moment of plummeting silence as the truth of it all sunk in.

 _No._

 _No._

 _NO._

 _NO!_

Diego laid his ears back in frustration and glared at Merle.

For as much as this situation horrified him, the older saber was right. Diego had, of course, been in the same position for years and knew how hard being second in command was. It was effectively a pack leadership position that was never completely able to take charge. It came with less respect and more uncertainty. There was always the threat of a challenger, always the threat of losing the pack leader's favor. Most of all, it came with unreasonable expectations and near-constant headaches.

And Merle knew darn well that he'd understand that.

Jackson couldn't do this by himself, and even though Diego hated knowing that he was agreeing to this under manipulation, he couldn't _not_ do it. It was true that Jackson would keep the pack together if he had to, but he needed help. He wasn't ready to take full control. And Diego, in good conscience, couldn't abandon him. He couldn't imagine having to take over when he'd first been named second, and this situation was so much worse. He just couldn't do it to him.

"Fine," Diego said in a dramatic half-growl, half-sigh.

"Excellent." Merle smiled smugly back at him. Before Diego could begin complaining about the underhandedness and lack of respect he was currently being shown as a newly-appointed pack leader – ugh, _gross_ – Merle added in a much more serious tone, "I imagine that whoever that young mammoth was, it's important. I'm not sure what's going on, and I know you'll eventually tell me so I won't waste time on it at the moment, but perhaps you should consider keeping him in the loop. Like I said, scouts are coming back with more weather news, and it's not looking good. We're in for a ride very soon, I think. I know that you can feel it."

Diego just rolled his eyes. But he could. He could feel it. His "bad" shoulder rarely hurt during his day-to-day activities, but it always let him know when weather was coming in. It was getting increasingly stiff and achy, and he just wanted it to stop.

"I'll see you tonight then," Merle said in his most smug pack leader voice.

"I'll be here," Diego growled. "And I _will_ be telling Jackson you have no faith in him."

"Please do," he hummed as Diego turned his back on that stupid little content smile.

000

Shira was laying by herself back at the clearing, obviously waiting for him.

"Merle wants me to lead his pack." Diego said before he'd even completely crossed into their area. The mammoths had apparently found another place to be for the afternoon. He was grateful that his mate had pushed them out to do their stupid exploring or whatever.

"I know," she answered, a little smile forming and dying a couple of times before she gave up and grinned. Before he could growl something about it not being funny, she added, "He asked me to do it first."

"What?" That stopped him in his tracks. The temper he'd been nursing the entire walk back also fled into the oblivion of surprise.

"I told him no," Shira went on lazily. "I have no interest in dealing with all of that nonsense."

"You'd be better at it than me!" He snapped through the shock and betrayal that had formed in the last few seconds. She'd whip them into shape faster than they could blink. Of course she was the better choice! How had all of this not occurred to him when Merle said she'd been there?

"That's what Merle seemed to think too," she shrugged, looking around their clearing with a thoughtful expression. "But I certainly wasn't high up in my pack, and Gutt only named me first mate because I was the most useful of us. Besides, he was such a good leader, how could I refuse?"

Diego rolled his eyes once at this but continued to frown at her. "And you thought I was a better second choice?"

"Merle was already going to ask you if I refused. I didn't _suggest_ it." She was more than enjoying this, but there was something serious in her eyes, too. She knew this was so much more complicated than stepping in for a few weeks. "I left my pack because I wanted independence. You know that lifestyle never suited me. Not the way it did you."

"I lived alone for years."

"And you hated it." She countered, good humor slipping away into seriousness. "Face it Diego, one way or another, you like being in a community. That's just _you_. But it's not me."

"You still could have warned me."

"You're the one who accepted it." She shrugged as if it wasn't her problem. But they both knew that she had known this would happen. And that she was well aware that no amount of foreknowledge would have changed that. Still, he wanted to be angry that she hadn't said anything before they'd parted ways earlier. "Diego."

She didn't go on until he looked her in the eye.

"Your friends aren't going to be upset with you because you went back into pack life. They wouldn't expect that from you or be disappointed in you for helping Merle out. They'd understand."

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments as Diego tried to get his emotions under control. Finally, he dropped his eyes away and nodded at the ground.

Manfred and Sid weren't his friends, after all. But he still couldn't imagine having to look them in the eye and say that he'd gone back into the very social structure that had almost gotten them all killed. It was fine with him that Peaches hadn't known anything. It wasn't fine with him that after all this time, things hadn't really changed.

Silence stretched for a long moment before he could hear Shira shift her position. "Now then. The kids are going to be out for a while, and I imagine you're needed back there tonight. Maybe we can talk about the next few weeks or…hang out or something?"

Diego perked his ears up, grinning at her despite himself. "Snuggle?"

"Mm, that sounds kind of interesting. Tell me more."

While they were both tough, unsympathetic sabers and all that other pretentious nonsense, these parts of their relationship usually led to a lot of giggling and blushing and general giddiness. And he didn't care because Diego had waited his whole life to meet her.

He settled down next to her, brushing at one side of her face affectionately with his own, and she hummed and leaned on his shoulder.

"Merle didn't look good." He admitted quietly after a minute of snuggly silence between them. "And he noticed Julian."

"He knows what he's about." Shira answered easily, and he had the feeling she meant this whole setup and not just Merle's powers of observation.

Before he could answer, she turned her head and smiled at him. A gentle nose touch, and then she was rubbing her face up his shoulder and neck to press her forehead into his.

The conversation effectively ended with that, and it was time for nuzzles and their own whispered words. Warmth, and closeness, and lovely talk often made up their downtime. And he fell into their routine as easily as always, playfully pulling at her ears and wrapping his paws around her as they breathlessly exchanged empty threats through their laughter.

Eventually, Shira managed to wriggle free and rolled over onto her back, batting a paw up at his face with a smug little smirk that used to drive him insane – and not in a good way. Now he just smiled down at her and nestled his head in the crook of her neck.

He closed his eyes, feeling the sunlit silence ease the taut muscles in his shoulder and heat the fur along his back to a comfortable temperature.

Adverse weather, pack leaders and injuries, unexpected guests with too much light in their eyes; it was all so unexpected and incredibly inconvenient. Settling down with Shira wasn't supposed to be like this, and for the next few weeks, he'd be missing their regular life together.

He'd be missing _this_.

But for as much as he wanted to be completely annoyed with it all, Diego just couldn't bring himself to feel that way. Merle was right about Jackson, and in the end, somebody was going to have to step in and help out. If it had to be him…he supposed there were worse propositions. Even if the timing was terrible.

For her part, Peaches had been right about him. Diego doubted that she knew he'd picked up on the way she looked at him. Like she wanted them to catch up after a long time apart. Like she liked him already.

He didn't want to like her already, too.

Diego buried his face farther into Shira's fur. He didn't want to get too far into this. Not right then. Not without her input. And his mate was currently dozing underneath his head.

So he breathed in once and forced himself to relax. She'd been so familiar even when they were first together. The way she breathed, her smell, what each of her annoyed looks meant. He could fall asleep next to her almost anywhere.

And he almost was when there were pounding footsteps and skittering laughter. The two of them were just blearily raising their heads when Peaches and Julian came tripping into the clearing…and stopped dead.

"Are we interrupting?" Julian asked after a moment in an exaggerated whisper as Peaches simultaneously tugged at his trunk with an embarrassed, apologetic smile.

"We'll just go."

"Good, we're trying to sleep." Shira yawned. But a moment later she was rolling back onto her stomach and cracking her neck to get rid of any stiffness. Diego pushed himself back to laying next to her and shot the two mammoths his most condemning sarcastic look.

They stared back with barely-concealed grins and a lot of smothered giggling.

"What did you think of the area?" Shira asked in a mock-exasperated tone of voice that said _Time to switch topics_.

Julian was more than ready to do so. "It was awesome!"

Then the two of them tag-teamed telling them all about their afternoon adventures, and while a part of Diego knew that this was all a bit ridiculous, he would have been lying to say he wasn't enjoying it just a little bit, too.

Peaches had definitely been right about him. He liked the two of them a lot already. And maybe, in the end, there wasn't much he'd be able to do about that.

* * *

If you were reading along and went, "Huh, that kind of sounds like a Monty Python reference," you would be correct!

Thanks for reading and please review! I love reading what you think!


	10. Chapter 10

The snow was all around him. At his feet, his back, his sides; it pushed at him in erratic patterns as the wind swept its way along the ground of this lonely expanse of land.

These were whiteout conditions now.

Every direction he looked was the same as any other. Without his internal compass, the one that filtered sounds and smells and unconscious proddings inside his mind to find the pull of the direction he wanted to go in, Diego would have been lost.

He'd never been lost in his entire life. It simply wasn't possible. And even now, even though he was coming up empty of everything else, he _did_ know where he was: the crest of the hill where he'd seen the humans the first time. The ice caves were to his left. There was a bulky, hunk of something there that told him what it was even though he couldn't see more than mere inches past his own nose.

Again, he tried to do a quick calculation in his mind. Without the snow, the path tracing backwards from the Pass should have been fairly clear, and it would have eventually led them to this spot. And if they traveled at a good speed – and Diego was fairly certain Manfred had sensed, as he did, the magnitude of the weather coming in – than they would have conceivably made it this far already.

Because there had been no sign of them at the entrance to Glacier Pass. Even the stark, grating human smell had been absent. The moment he'd turned to look back the way they would have gone…the valley floor had been almost unrecognizable. Great drifts of snow were pushed up against the steep sides, and weak sunlight through falling snow had screamed a very, very unhappy truth at him: he was too late.

And when Diego stood alone, facing squarely south, with Glacier Pass a shaky half mile behind him, he channeled all of his mental energy into picking up anything that he could. And eventually, a very faint hint of something that could have been Sid stuck out to him from the atmospheric smell of wet, too-cold snow.

So he'd followed it, grasping at any curve of scent the wind threw his way. Plodding along, nose in the air, or sometimes even to the snow to try to get to its lower layers, he'd subconsciously followed the well-known pathways beneath the snow.

The amount of ground he'd covered since then worried him. He hadn't even stopped to rest, and yet, there was no sign of them. Just…nothing.

But that didn't stop him from ignoring his instincts and always, in the back of his mind, waiting to run face-first into one of Manfred's legs or hear Sid's frightened yelp as he accidently tackled the sloth into the snow.

And it was in these tense, empty hours that he began replaying the fight in his mind. Saw his chances, the alternate ones hidden by blurry adrenaline in the moment, that could have prevented this. Soto had exposed himself in _that_ stance, was slightly distracted after _that_ offensive move, was off-balance in _that_ split-second transition. Diego went through the options over and over, adjusting his own reactions to create a thousand fights over in his mind. Fantasy Soto went down too easily in a myriad of different, less-than-believable ways, and he began to wonder if it would have been better to come up with a different way to separate his pack at the outset.

In between refighting these Sotos, he refined his original plan compulsively, shifting his packmates around like icebergs eddying past each other on a thawing river. The timing had been surprisingly perfect for Manfred's part of the plan. That log had done its job. But, looking back, it was stupid not to lure Soto into the trap first. It would have been more difficult and almost impossibly riskier. But they might have avoided trying to fight the entire pack at once.

Because Diego knew that by the time they'd reached the apex of Soto's strategy for bringing down mammoths, it was too late. Nothing would have prevented Diego from jumping in front of Manfred. Not at that point.

More than anything, that was the single moment that defined it all. If he could have avoided that one move, everything would be different. Maybe not for Manfred and Sid, but it definitely would have found him elsewhere at this very moment.

As it was, he'd been out long enough to give them one heck of a head start. And from what he could see – which was basically nothing – they'd made good use of it. And of course, the small practical part of him that seemed to come out of every situation undamaged and clear-eyed whispered that it was probably better that he was the one stuck out here and not them.

If they were ahead of the storm, they'd have less chance of getting lost, whereas Diego could find his route either way. He'd run into them again at some point, it was inevitable. If he didn't catch them out here first, getting outside of the storm's path would allow him to pick up scents and tracks and more than likely, too-loud voices. It was just a matter of finding his way out of this mess.

000

He could feel his shoulder when he woke up. It was pretty much the only thing he could feel. Even breathing somehow made it hurt more, and he didn't dare stretch and aggravate the burning, stiff muscles that covered the joint.

The events from the day before weren't surprising or confusing. Despite the fact that he'd basically collapsed already half-asleep in a small shelter of rock partway between the ice caves and their first night's campsite, it wasn't a question how Diego had gotten there. He knew where he was. He knew what had happened. And he knew what he needed to do.

Whereas the day before, with its freezing wind and mind-numbing miles, had eased the sharp pricks and twinges that reverberated through the muscle cords, his body heat had let the wound thaw out overnight. And it _hurt_.

At first, he wasn't sure if he should even get up and walk on it. He'd never sustained an injury this bad before, and from the way it seemed to be burning right through him and making the rest of his body ache dully, Diego definitely had his concerns.

He'd covered a lot of ground yesterday, maybe taking a break for a day, or even half a day, to try and sleep some of this off was a better idea. He was already in the perfect spot. The orientation of the rocks had provided just enough of a shelter from the wind to keep him above freezing and prevent snow from piling on top of him. Now, a dull, emotionless screaming was coming from the other side of the formation.

Diego growled and carefully got his good paw underneath him and pushed up. Then, carefully, he let his right paw touch the ground. A spasm as the muscles moved and a headrush of dizziness as he looked around. He gritted his teeth and pressed it completely down. Then a little bit of weight. Then a little more. Then enough that he could support himself as his other paw swiped at the drifts to clear a path to the other side.

It hurt. It hurt a whole lot. But it was stable. And as blue, barely-there daylight hit his eyes on the other side, his heart sank. His vision wasn't swimming from pain, it was still snowing that hard. The wind, the screaming thing that he'd heard, blew right into his face, pushing the tufts of fur away from his eyes and forcing his ears to swivel down close to his head. For a moment, he wasn't sure what hurt worse: his shoulder or his whole body.

Resting here wasn't going to be an option, and as he climbed out into the snow, he was anxious to keep going. He had to get out of this storm, and he needed to do it before too much time passed. If only for his own well-being.

The joints in his shoulder moved and locked the way they were supposed to, and other than a searing, but otherwise monotonous, pain with the movements, the injured leg bore his weight.

So he kept going.

000

Diego wasn't sure how, but each blast of wind managed to cut at him just as badly as the one before. Even after hours. And hours, and hours, and hours.

He was shivery from more than just the cold, eyes slit against the oncoming snow, and exhausted from having to constantly reorient himself against the push and pull of the wind. His shoulder had melted into nothingness a good few miles back, and the only reason he knew it was still well enough to travel on was because he hadn't pitched sideways into the snow yet.

But sooner or later, that was more than likely what was going to happen.

He couldn't remember the last time he was this tired, and the slight hunger he'd been nursing since yesterday was making it harder to focus on anything other than keeping himself headed in the right direction. And even that felt surreal and more like second-nature taking over.

This storm had spread itself out farther than he'd expected, and the farther he went, pushing himself against the elements on a southeasterly route that ran vaguely parallel to their original course, the more worried he became. There was no sign of Manfred or Sid anywhere, and none of them had bothered to discuss where the mammoth and sloth were going to go once the baby was safely returned to his herd. Diego had assumed they'd simply retrace their steps south, so he'd unthinkingly picked this direction when he'd set out. But in reality, they could be anywhere. Anywhere.

It was like his entire life was melting away, and, in a horrifying second of clarity, he realized that it kind of already had. Maybe, unlike his original surety that he'd known exactly what he was doing, the reality of this situation hadn't truly hit him yet.

Yeah, he was alone out here and searching for ghosts in the snow. Yeah, he'd more or less effectively dismantled a pack. Yeah, he'd sided with prey. But he'd never really liked that pack anyway. And he'd fixed a situation that was more or less his fault, although Soto certainly wasn't innocent in all this.

No, it was where to go from here. Because this wasn't just leaving a pack or making some new…uh, friends? It was changing everything he was supposed to be, everything that he'd assumed he would be. This wasn't a rearrangement; this was destruction.

He didn't regret Half Peak. Not yet, anyway. But he didn't like the roiling, too-deep feeling the thought of the next day gave him. For a moment, his instincts whirled with the force of it. An empty sensation surfaced, and before it could overrun everything else, he forced himself to focus on what was around him.

A snowstorm. Possibly the worst he'd ever seen. And he was a single idiot out in it.

His mind slowly pulled its thoughts back together, and he was surprised at how hard it was to orient himself after a minute's lapse in concentration. His paws were sliding through the snow as the wind turned him around again and again, and that unfamiliar empty sensation came back for a moment as he realized he _didn't_ know which direction he was facing.

Panic, sharp and precise rose from the deepening snow around his paws, sucking him down and obliterating any half-formed landmarks in the back of his mind. He'd subconsciously been clinging to the biggest one: that he knew the way out of this.

He suspected that thought was deeper than simply trying to navigate in a blizzard. But he couldn't bring himself to return to his earlier trail of thought. Not because he was _scared_. Of course not. He knew his own mind like he knew the miles of the pack's territory. Every trail, every narrow passage had been traversed until the way was worn smooth and mapped permanently in his mind. He knew who he was…who he had been a day, no, three days ago.

Diego dug his claws into the snow, defiance tightening the knuckles and cutting off the wind's course as it rushed around him. Everywhere he looked, with a slow, searching turn of his head, snow was coming right at him.

He took a deep breath, reaching beneath the numbness and the strange, unnamable feeling of something absent, until he found what he was looking for. Roused from its hibernation, determination gripped his mind right back with its usual force. He opened his eyes again and walked forward, letting the tilt of the land and a murky guestimate tell him where he was and where he was going.


	11. Chapter 11

What had he been _thinking_?

The sun was so bright, flecks of it were glowing from the snow around him – an entire plain alight like the almost-clear blue sky above it.

The storm had spent itself two days ago and left calm weather and common sense in its wake. Now Diego was on their trail and cursing himself for the slew of bad decisions he'd made in the mammoth and sloth's absence.

He should have stopped to let himself rest. He shouldn't have been trying to track in the middle of a raging blizzard. And he shouldn't have been so ready to pick a course. He'd already realized the last one, but it felt much more real – not to mention infuriating – now that his mind and the sky were clear.

Really, what had he been thinking? Trying to fight a snowstorm. It had gotten him nowhere, and now his shoulder just idly burned like the early morning embers of Sid's fire. A slow roasting, bright pain that just sat in the muscles and went on and on until Diego didn't think it would ever do anything else.

He'd been so confused, wandering out there in the snow. And it was hard to reconcile this weather with the too-close memories of endless flakes shadowing him across the featureless void that made up the bulk of the north. And the scents he'd thought he was catching were more than likely phantom smells that his delirious mind was mistaking for reality. There'd been no trail, no way he'd have ever found them.

None of that felt like reality now, especially his lines of thought. Panicking because he was alone, feeling like he was losing himself…again, he thought of how delirious he'd been.

He let himself let go of the memories, again, and raised his nose to the air.

His shoulder still hurt, but it was a thousand times better after a few nights' sleep in the slumbery calm that snowstorms tended to leave in their wake, and with the land around him unobstructed for miles, he could finally do what he'd been waiting for, for the last few days.

Unfortunately, his bone-headed route had put him a little farther east than he necessarily wanted to be, and as he traversed a wide plain that he'd only ever seen from afar, he tried to decide if he should double back and try to catch the tail end of the migration or go south from his current position and find it farther along its route. For the thousandth time that morning, he tried to figure how far south the storm would have reached. It had stopped of its own accord while he'd been asleep, so he'd never actually found the edges of it. All that fresh snow could potentially yield tracking markers.

If he could locate prints, that would be the easiest course of action. But if they'd avoided it completely, that would put him in the realm of smells and faint traces carved into the dirt, the trees, the edges of sources of water. Traces that could be completely buried by now and fading quickly. It would be much more difficult, and even though he felt better and more lucid than before, unsettled thoughts still nagged at him every once in a while. Much like his slowly-healing shoulder, his concentration seemed to be taking a while to completely recover.

Emptiness gaped inside of his mind for a brief moment, reminding him, again, that something was off. And he shoved it away. Again. He'd been so delirious. It was going to take awhile to readjust to all of this.

And he couldn't do that until he caught up to them. He had better things to do right now than get lost in his own mind. This new sinkhole in the back of his thoughts that he hadn't asked for could wait until he found his way back to what he _had_ chosen – _who_ he had chosen.

Now, with the sun lighting up the whole world like it was supposed to, he could finally do that.

000

It had been a week, and he was coming up with nothing. A week of going everywhere, trying everything he could think of. Doubling back for a couple of days, searching out remote areas, trying to parse the week-old mix of scents from the edges of the migration. He trekked every mile he could think of, tried every tracking trick he'd ever learned. But no matter what trails he followed, how far he pushed himself, there wasn't anything to find.

Eventually, he made his way east again, scouting for the long-gone migration into areas he'd never entered and that were just as empty as what he was leaving behind.

The North had never seemed like a desolate place the way it did now.

And there was something stalking his thoughts. The more he focused on what he was doing, the more menacing it grew. Waiting. Just waiting. And as the days turned into another week, and his shoulder healed just enough to let him sleep all the way through the night, he fell asleep trying to push the – now familiar – empty feeling away. He didn't know what it meant or where it had come from, but it always began in his mind and gave him the sense that his body was about to be swallowed by the ground under his paws.

It reminded him of being in the middle of the snowstorm. Like he'd managed to absorb a bit of its energy, and now it wouldn't stop building inside of him. He hated it instinctively, even though he didn't really understand why it made him so uncomfortable.

The bright days burned overhead as he steadily made his way south, falling into a routine of sleeping for a few hours at a time, tracking for as long as he could keep himself from getting frustrated, and then repeating.

It was getting slightly easier now that there was more low-growing scrub and patchy pockets of spindly trees. There was a higher chance that they'd come through this way as well as better options for food and shelter when he took a break to eat or sleep. It was also less exhausting than butting up against the constant emptiness that he'd dealt with in the northernmost areas. Now, he could relax a little and let his instincts guide him. Sometimes he'd think over everything that had happened, sometimes he was too busy taking stock of his surroundings. He'd never been this far east before, and even though the position of the sun and the features of the landscape told him where he was, it felt different than what he'd left behind.

Most of the time, he tried to steady his increasingly-flighty concentration and imagine what it would be like when he finally did pick up the right scent, find the right print. He sometimes caught himself sinking too far into wondering what he would say to them when they looked up at the sound of another animal approaching through the undergrowth. He supposed it would be something sarcastic, which wouldn't surprise any of them.

What would _they_ say to _him_? That they were surprised? – That they couldn't believe it? – That they were really a herd now?

Sid's voice sounded in his head out of nowhere, _That's it, you're outta the herd!_ And Diego stumbled a little over his front paws in surprise.

They'd been so furious when he'd first told them, but in the chaos afterwards, he'd unwittingly pushed it aside. Their anger felt remote, like his groggy thoughts after first waking up. He knew it was real, but he couldn't _feel_ it the way he could feel the anger in his shoulder. He didn't carry it the way he carried his relief that they'd won. It had somehow taken second place.

But what if…what if they _didn't_ want this? What if he got there and their faces fell at the sight of him? What if they had only said they forgave him because they felt bad he'd been hurt? What if they were still angry?

Something splintered inside of him like the multi-prong crack of lightning in a stormy sky, and he realized in a moment what had been following him all along. Doubt. Heavy, and all-too justified. It was so obvious…and he'd been so stupid not to see it until now. Of course they would say those things. They were too nice, too _emotional_ to just walk away. And he'd never know that they didn't mean it. Maybe, for them, walking away from Half Peak had been the ideal end of it.

That _bothered_ him. The feeling hit him so fast, he got vertigo. And somehow even worse, his immediate response still wasn't regret. It wasn't to take back Half Peak and erase everything until he rewound to a place where his body and mind didn't ache every second of the day. Where he hadn't betrayed his pack leader and thrown his own life into utter chaos.

No, it was an uncomfortable desperation to fix it. Because a part of him realized simultaneously that there was a good chance he _couldn't_ fix it. Not if they truly were done with him. In fact, they could be sitting around a fire right now, glad to be done with the whole situation…

A fire!

His mind cleared instantly. He'd been focusing on the ground. But if they were lighting fires…the sky would tell him. Perhaps he'd gotten it all backwards. If he only tracked at night maybe he'd spot something clouding the stars or hear voices. His earlier nighttime tracking hadn't yielded much, but he also hadn't been specifically scouting for the signs that would lead him to a fire. Had he already missed clues that would have taken him in a different direction?

It didn't matter. He knew what he needed to do now.

But he didn't get more than two steps when there was the unmistakable sound of movement in the trees behind him, and he turned slightly just as two sabers padded confidently from the sparse undergrowth. He'd never seen them before, and both looked about as friendly as Diego would have been if he'd caught trespassers in his pack's area.

"Take one more step, and you're in our territory," one of them said. They didn't seem surprised to see him, and he knew that this wasn't a chance meeting. They'd found his scent and were following him. More than likely this 'warning' was more of an excuse to fight than an offer of goodwill.

Diego decided to try diplomacy anyway. "Understood. How do I get around it?"

"Twenty miles on both sides, ten south." The first saber spoke again, and Diego felt his jaw drop. Then he pulled himself together with a snarl while both sabers tried not to smile. Territories weren't that big. Smug little twits.

"Then I guess I have some walking to do." Diego took a few steps to the side, as if he really was about to follow their directions.

Their smiles dropped, and one of them snarled in annoyance. The saber who hadn't spoken yet slid in front of him. He paused when he saw the warped mess of healing muscle and skin. Diego had purposefully kept his shoulder out of their line of sight, and he briefly considered using the moment of distraction it granted to get in a good swipe. But he really didn't want to fight, and Diego doubted he could have taken one of them let alone both right now. After a moment, the saber met his eyes commandingly. "We will escort you from here."

He sighed sarcastically. "I just want to get to the other side of your territory, I promise."

"Not without our pack leader's permission."

That was what he'd been afraid of. But Diego didn't bother to argue. "Fine. Then let me talk to your pack leader."

The saber in front of him turned to the other and nodded. Then they fell into step on both sides of him, walking close enough to easily take him down if he tried anything. The fact that they hadn't, in fact, attacked him unprovoked yet was promising. But every leader ran their pack differently, and this one obviously wanted utmost control of what went on in his or her territory.

Diego pretended not to notice the other saber eyeing his shoulder. Now that all three of them knew it was a liability, he'd have to be even more careful to let it fade into himself. The more comfortable with it he was, the less their pack leader would notice it. The thought that he needed to be exactly himself in this moment felt like a mammoth trunk to the face.

He frowned the rest of the way to the pack's sleeping area.

"Nate!" The saber on his good side bounded forward a few steps into the clearing, and Diego automatically stopped when the one next to him did. He raised his head a little, analyzing the scents around him as quickly as he could. The place definitely smelled like sabers, maybe about five, but it wasn't strong the way it should have been. The snow must have swept through here too, muting everything. No wonder he hadn't noticed anything strange when he'd first entered the area.

Then again, he'd also been a little preoccupied by his thoughts at that point. Diego huffed in frustration once, and just shook his head when the saber next to him noticed and turned to look at him.

A moment later, the first saber came forward followed by another one. He wasn't as stocky as Soto, not even quite as built as his two henchmen, but he had that aura about him. From the discerning smile on his face to the relaxed slant of his ashy-orange tail, this was, without a doubt, their leader.

"Nate." He inclined his head once.

"Diego."

"He wants permission to travel through our territory." The saber next to Diego said, the cocky lilt to his voice having magically disappeared now that his pack leader was involved.

"That's correct," Diego added quickly. He really wasn't interested in drawing this conversation out to a ridiculous length, and he was even less keen on Nate's lack of reaction to his glaringly-obvious shoulder. "I mean no threat to your pack. I simply want to take the fastest route south."

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"I see." Nate nodded a little, and Diego thought he could see the other saber thinking. Or at the very least, hesitating slightly. It was impressive how almost imperceptible it was. After a moment, he made whatever decision he'd been pretending not to make and nodded towards the trees around them, "Let's go talk."

That couldn't be good. But Diego supposed he didn't really have much of a choice.

"We're good here. You can go back to whatever you were doing before." Nate called over his shoulder at his packmates as Diego followed after him into the snowy undergrowth. To his surprise, after a moment, Nate purposefully slowed down until Diego was able to match pace with him.

They walked side by side in silence for a couple of minutes, and Diego tried to pretend like he wasn't swiftly memorizing every sight, scent, and swell of ground. It was starting to make sense how the land was changing from the far north. Using Half Peak as a static point to navigate by, he was slowly piecing together where he was in relation to it. This patch of forest would probably connect to wherever the migration had disappeared to.

Not that any of that would matter if Nate suddenly turned on him and went for a kill. For as much as their body sizes were more or less evenly matched, he knew the saber next to him was the leader for numerous good reasons. One of them was bound to be that he was a vicious and merciless fighter.

He felt the sudden unease of imagining Manfred and Sid accidently stumbling upon this pack. Which, of course, led straight back to his earlier storm of thoughts. After this brief distraction, he was shocked by how much it hurt. Could they really be happier without him right now? Of course they would. It wasn't really even a question.

"So, why are you here?" Nate's polite voice pulled him out of his thoughts so violently that Diego involuntarily jumped and whipped around to look at him. The other saber raised his eyebrows, having taken a surprised step back.

Diego pulled himself together in an instant. "I'm headed south, like I said. I would have gone around if I'd known there was another pack in the area. I'm not looking for a fight."

Nate shook his head. "I know that you intend no harm. I'm just wondering what brought you here in the first place. I want to make sure that I know who's in my area. That's all."

"That's all," Diego echoed, unable to stop the hard edge in his voice.

"It is." Instead of going on the defensive, Nate's expression turned compassionate. If Diego hadn't spent so much time around Manfred and Sid in the last few days, he wasn't sure he would have recognized it for what it was. And it was somehow worse. "You don't seem to know anything about the area, so where are you from? Farther north?"

"Half Peak." Diego answered carefully. He doubted news had spread too quickly, but if he'd found no signs of Manfred or Sid, he'd really found nothing to indicate where his packmates had gone. They could have already passed through the area and stirred up trouble or turned any sabers they found to their side of the story.

Nate didn't seem to attach any special meaning to that location, though. Instead, his gaze finally shifted to Diego's shoulder. "That looks pretty painful. What happened?"

"My pack leader. It was a kill move for a mammoth."

"And your pack leader's eyesight was that poor?"

"I jumped in front of him." At first Diego was sure Nate was about to continue with, "So _your_ eyesight was that poor?" But at the last second, he watched the slap of cold understanding that stopped the words and widened the other saber's eyes.

Nate _really_ looked at him this time. Hard.

Diego met his eyes levelly, waiting.

"You jumped in front of the mammoth to stop your pack leader."

"Correct."

"And you're not dead."

"The mammoth didn't let him finish the job."

"The mammoth didn't…what?" Nate's face was incredulous, and Diego could see that this was exactly what the other saber had already sensed and had been searching for. He'd known that something big was brewing under everything Diego wasn't saying, and he knew enough to take it into account before letting a stranger enter his territory.

"The humans attacked our pack. My leader, Soto, wanted to pay them back for it." So Diego went through the whole story. What else was he supposed to do? Nate was quickly exposing himself as the type who would rather fight his battles across a variety of mediums. And there was a part of Diego that liked the fact he asked questions first.

Finally, he reached the part of the story that they were both waiting for. Diego relived the fight in its real version this time and forced himself to focus on the facts instead of Manfred's look of betrayal in those moments before Diego went on the defense. He also glossed over their conversation after Soto had been killed, skipping to waking up and heading into the snowstorm instead. "I think the rest is fairly self-explanatory."

They'd both laid down facing each other over the course of the story, and now Nate looked like he wasn't sure what to do with himself. Finally, he managed to say, "Your pack leader died because of that mammoth."

He had. It hadn't been part of the plan, but he had.

"You were his second in command; you betrayed him."

"I don't care."

Nate hesitated at the unapologetic look on his face, and Diego briefly wondered if that would be enough to let this conversation end. The likelihood of the other saber attacking him was definitely higher than it had been before. Still, he hoped Nate would just send him on his way with a _good riddance_ and a growl.

"Again, I mean your pack no harm," Diego nudged.

Nate wasn't as quick to agree with him this time, and instead gave him another searching look. They both waited in silence for him to finish thinking. "I don't like what happened back there," he finally said, but then switched to a slightly more put-together tone. His mildness seemed to be more of a continuous façade than anything else. Even his pleasant tone returned. "You may travel through my territory. But I request that you wait until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"It's dusk now. I'm not totally sold on your intentions, and I'll feel a lot better if you're out of my sight when it's broad daylight."

That was _so_ not the answer Diego had been anticipating. And he almost didn't agree to it. He needed to keep going, and he needed to track at night so that he could catch signs and smells of smoke. But he also didn't know how far down Nate's pretend calm went. Perhaps, instead of making yet another rash decision in the face of something inconvenient, it would be better to agree to the terms and go on his way with a slight delay. Still, he bristled at the thought of how much farther apart this could potentially put them.

"Fine." He finally said, and Nate's face didn't change, but Diego could have sworn he saw the other saber read his mind in that moment. At least, as far as trying to track down Manfred and Sid.

"Let's head back then and get settled for the night." Nate rose to his feet and waited patiently for Diego to get his good paw steadied and ready to bear his weight. Once again, they kept pace with each other back to the pack's clearing.

This was a good tactical move on Nate's part, placing a strange saber directly under his nose. They both knew Diego wasn't in fighting condition, and he wouldn't be able to do nearly enough damage to make it worth ambushing the pack members during the night. Plus, Diego suspected that Nate believed him more than he wanted to. There was no reason for him to wander into an unfamiliar place and attack sabers he didn't know. This was more of a precaution than anything else.

He wondered if Nate would say anything to his underlings when they got back. Most of the time, sabers that weren't attacked on sight ended up joining the pack whose territory they found themselves in. Perhaps Dumb and Dumber from earlier were already expecting it and trying to decide whether to accept his presence or "accidentally" dispose of him. They certainly hadn't been happy about Diego calling their bluff.

Yet another thing he definitely wasn't sorry about.

Groggy doubt stirred in the back of his mind then, reminding him of what he _was_ currently sorry for and how much bigger of a mess it may turn out to be.

He couldn't help it, he glanced at Nate briefly as they walked. The other saber didn't notice, or at the very least didn't bother to respond. But a very small voice in the back of Diego's mind pointed out that this, too, may be an alternative. It was a miracle he'd found a pack leader willing to listen to his side of the story and let him keep existing. Maybe…

Diego regathered his focus as they reached the sleeping area they'd departed from. The rest of the pack appeared to be back, and there seemed to be four in total. Nate, the two boneheads, and a female saber that smiled at her leader when she caught sight of him. Nate nodded at her in a less-than-subtle way that was clearly meant to be both loving and noncommittal at the same time.

So he had a mate. Diego made it a point not to notice her as Nate introduced him to the three of them. "Ames, Cole, you've already met Diego. Rowan, Diego is traveling through our territory and will be staying the night with us."

"Sounds good to me." Diego didn't even bother to look at her as she responded in a lighthearted tone and went over to claim her spot on the hard-packed dirt.

"Sleep where you like." Nate turned to look him in the eyes once and then went over to lay next to Rowan.

Ames, or maybe Cole, he wasn't sure which one was actually which, just raised their eyebrow at him and then turned and disappeared into the trees to take first watch. The other one waited for Diego to pick a spot – which he did by backing up a few paces before sinking down – and then laid down in what appeared to be another well-used spot diagonal to his leader.

It was going to be a long night, and Diego didn't even bother trying to fall asleep. His mind was too busy working through everything that had happened in the last twelve hours. It was hard not to want to occasionally open his eyes and search the sky for signs of life. But that would be a big mistake, and instead he stayed still, trapped in an ever-growing feeling of hopelessness.

Okay, so maybe his panic during the snowstorm hadn't been entirely unjustified. His earlier dismissal of those feelings felt silly and desperate now. And before he could stop himself, he wondered if he really had just torn his entire life apart. Even more, if the alternative he'd been giving it up for was really even his to claim.

It had been easy to care when he thought they cared too, but for a moment, all he wanted was for it to go away. If they really were glad to be done with the whole situation – him included – then that's how he wanted to feel too. He wanted to let them go and move on. But no matter how hard he tried, it stuck like sap to his insides. Willing it to leave did nothing, and he couldn't stop the thought that this was too big of a mistake for him to fix. That maybe he'd feel the repercussions in worse ways than a throbbing, messed-up shoulder.

Maybe…his feelings weren't reciprocated. Maybe it was all for nothing no matter what he wanted.

His mind went on like this for an indeterminate amount of time, and he didn't remember when he finally slid into an exhausted sleep filled with empty holes and angry mammoths trumpeting.

000

He'd never admit it to Nate, but it was nice to wake up and not be alone in the morning. Opening his eyes and seeing where he was, was a good distraction. Diego was even happy to see Ames and Cole curled up near each other a few feet away.

They were both asleep, and Diego put his head back down and let the sun work its way up his body as it rose. No sense in waking anyone up right away. Instead, he let himself float in denial-ridden peace until there were more sounds of life, and he looked up and blinked as Rowan rose and stretched herself carefully. She gave him a little smile before turning and leaping into the trees. In his spot, Nate shifted a little, sleepily searching the spot where his mate had just been.

Diego looked back at the other guys, and a few moments later Nate quietly spoke up, "I suppose you're ready to get moving."

"I am." Diego turned his attention back to him. He tried not to let his thoughts from the night before show in his eyes.

But Nate just nodded and stood up.

"Don't bother, we're going." A yawning voice interrupted, and then Ames and Cole were both getting to their feet. One of them glanced at the spot where Rowan had been and frowned in annoyance before saying to Nate, "We'll track for a while and stay out of your fur."

The two of them left, the other grumbling to his friend about how it wasn't fair "how early she always gets up….makes us look bad… _so_ annoying…"

Diego couldn't help himself, he shot Nate a surprised look. But the other saber just looked amused. He really did give his pack a fair amount of freedom. It made Soto's tight grip seem a little ridiculous. Then again, look at what had happened.

"You kept your word, and I expect that it will stay that way. You are free to travel and hunt on your way through my territory." Nate turned to him.

"I appreciate it." Diego answered, feeling a heavy weight between the two of them.

The sting of everything he was currently failing to make right hit him particularly hard as Nate said, "And, just so you're aware, we have not seen a mammoth and sloth pass through here together. I would suggest sticking to your original plan to go straight south. Most of the migration is well past the areas that I know by now."

This was, more than likely, his only chance to do this. And Diego started talking before he could decide against it. "You're a good leader. You run your pack fairly, and you care. That's rare. If you're interested, I would be grateful to accept a place in it."

"And when you decide that I'm no longer a good leader?"

"Soto never was in the first place."

Nate just looked at him for a moment, more than likely trying to decide whether or not he wanted to bother bringing up the obvious: that Diego wasn't the leader and it hadn't really been his choice to make in the end. He'd wrested power from where it should have lied, and it had played out in the worst possible way.

"I still don't like that situation." But he said it in a way that implied it wasn't just Diego's actions he was unhappy with. Maybe. It was difficult to tell for sure. "I'm sorry. You're unpredictable. I can't put my pack in danger like that. The answer is no."

"I understand." For as much as he'd thought he wanted this a moment ago, he was incredibly relieved. He would keep going and keep looking. No matter how much he wished that he knew what he was walking into with those two, he needed to at least try. After all, his "herd" may be waiting for him somewhere after all. For as much as it hurt to even think about trying to make things better, he couldn't bear to think of what would happen if they did want him to come back and he never showed up.

Diego didn't wait for Nate to say anything else, and simply nodded to him a little lower than necessary. Just enough to show respect and gratitude without implying that they weren't equals – a strange, strange feeling that Diego couldn't decide how he felt about since he'd never supposed himself equal to a pack leader in his entire life – before he turned and left.

* * *

The geography of these movies is…a little all over the place. Of course, there was the really great Stonehenge gag in the first film, and that placed them in England. However, I'm imagining much of this story taking place in Canada/the US. Once _Continental Drift_ happened, I think most of it became kind of obsolete anyway. And these animals are traveling really long distances, so it works better to give them a larger space to roam.

Thanks for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

Ugh. I don't know what it was about this chapter, but it was super stubborn. So! Much, _much_ , later than I intended, please enjoy!

* * *

It only took about five minutes to realize that trying to track the thing was probably going to be useless. The scene of the fight was a jumbled mess, and any prints leading to or away from it had been reshaped by the wind and yet another small snowstorm that blew in overnight.

They still tried, though. For Merle.

The aridness that he could sense, hiding under layer after layer of snow, wasn't familiar to him. And apparently not to Cam either. The third in command turned and shook his head from a few paces away. They were standing at trail's end, where the last bit of strangeness that had led them there dropped off to the regular background smells. It was the tenth dead end. A few miles from base camp, they'd hit the limits of their range and their skills.

"We need Sidney," Cam had said that morning as they trailed through the trees in the crusty, wind-packed snow.

"I know."

But the triplets wouldn't be back for another week or so, and by then it would be too late for even her to pick up a trail. Besides, the weather was changing again, and they'd see another storm in a matter of hours. Whatever little luck that had spared Merle's life had run out.

Now Cam straightened and called to their other two packmates to go a little further and meet at the fork by the northeast point of the forest. Obedient voices answered him, and the three of them dispersed.

Jackson turned and slowly began making his way home to report what they'd found. Diego definitely wouldn't be surprised. More than likely, he'd just nod with his usual I-don't-actually-give-a-crap attitude, and they'd go on with the day.

Merle had announced what was happening last night, and the pack was _not_ happy. But it also wasn't in chaos, and that was probably most important. Certainly more important than Jackson's own feelings, which were currently an embarrassing mess of relief and vague anxiety.

Merle was staying with Brian's herd to give him a chance to heal and rest without feeling pressured to help out with the pack. It was for the best; even if it left them more or less on their own.

Diego had asked that Jackson take over for the first half day to get a feel for how the pack worked, which was understandable, but he kept asking questions about what Jackson thought about this or that, or how Jackson supposed they should organize tracking teams. It was weird. The most apathetic saber that Jackson had ever met was actually paying attention to patrol rotations and meal schedules.

For as much as Diego's easygoing style would take some getting used to, there did seem to be a sense of intention under his impassive gaze.

Not that any of it really mattered. Second in commands were there to be commanded, not debated with. The one time he had dared to argue back, nothing came of it. Merle had been right that the attacker was long gone, and even if Jackson still felt uneasy about his pack leader's dismissal, only one of them was actually in charge. And it wasn't him. He'd been wrong to overstep.

The first flakes of yet another snowfall started dropping between the trees, and Jackson looked up. That was definitely a storm-laden sky. And the chill breeze that swept around him a moment later was a bitter warning. Time to head back.

000

Slender rays of light were finally beginning to stream through the clouds.

 _About time._ Manny glanced up for what must have been the twentieth time at the glowing grey sky overhead. It had been stormy all morning, and the embers of their fire seemed blindingly bright when he'd opened his eyes at the usual time. It was still much too dark, too depressive. It reminded him of the haze of years between his first family and having a sloth run face first into his back leg.

But it was somehow worse outside of his head. Because his herd, his family, the animals he loved the most, were having to deal with it too.

They were spread out around him now, eating their breakfast quietly. Well, mostly quietly. Sid was flinching every now and again as the possums darted through the underbrush, switching between tag and a dozen other little games they made up on the spot. They'd magically gained more energy since the wedding. He hadn't noticed it much until the last few days, but their boundless antics loomed over the space between the morning his baby girl had turned her sights outward to the unknown, and now.

In response to her leaving, the possums had driven themselves inward, taking their mischief out on the herd. Picking on Sid. Hanging on Ellie until she eventually got sick of it and chased them off to amuse themselves elsewhere. Actually helping to clean up the lake area after the fire; even if they did get sidetracked for a while chasing each other through the mud.

Now they'd begun focusing their games on Sid. The sloth was muttering and yelping every so often in annoyance to a background of snickers. Manny reached up for another clump of leaves.

Snow was sitting just out of reach, frosting the tips of the leaves and gusting in cold, cold wind. He could smell it there, waiting. Meanwhile, it got colder. The waterfall was completely iced over at the top and bottom. The falling water grew fainter every day. And there were still tremors. They shook the ground casually, echoing the massive thunderclouds grumbling overhead.

Neither of them brought up the kids. He knew they were both hoping they were okay, but he couldn't tell where Ellie was at in her feelings. He was edging panic; maybe she was too. For the first time in their relationship, he didn't want to seek her help. The nagging sense that she needed _him_ wasn't reassuring.

The crunch of leaves and snow signaled an approaching animal, and they all turned as a familiar long-nosed creature poked his head out from behind a tree, eyes narrowed, searching the group. "Have you seen anything…weird?"

Manny raised his eyebrow. "Yes."

"Manny!" Ellie whapped his shoulder with her trunk as the possums fell over themselves with laughter. Sid stuffed more leaves in his mouth, clearly to the point of no return in his annoyance.

Gary didn't react and pulled his head back from around the tree. A moment later he entered their breakfast area, walking his slow, slouchy walk. "Last night some of the folks on the outskirts of the territory said they heard something. You didn't hear anything, did you?"

"I'm hearing something no-"

"What did it sound like Gary?" Ellie put herself firmly between the two of them. Manny frowned for a moment in her direction.

"Leaves rustling, some growling. They sure didn't think it was anyone we would know," Gary answered dolefully. "Whatever it was vanished into thin air come this morning though. That's what worries me."

"So everyone's okay?" Ellie prodded at the same time Manny asked, "Do we need to be concerned?"

He widened his eyes at her innocently when she shot him a sarcastic look.

"We lost whatever it was moving farther into the area. Must have thought they'd better be more careful. I don't know. But all the neighbors have been checking up on each other. Everyone seems to be just fine."

Neighbors and locals. They'd invited the residents of the surrounding area to Peaches and Julian's wedding, of course. But that wasn't to say they were particularly close to any of them. Gary was probably their closest "friend" and Manny thought of him more as a Sid of a different variety than anything else.

He glanced over at his best friend. The sloth had gone back to eating.

"Well, let me know if you hear anything." Gary awkwardly maneuvered himself back around. "If someone's in our area, we should probably figure it out real quick."

With that uncommonly insightful comment, he left.

Manny rolled his eyes as soon as the sound of hoof steps faded. "No Gary, there's nothing to be afraid of around here. No predators, mild weather, if anything it's my own herd you have to worry abou-"

Manny had just been thinking he hadn't seen where the possums went, and suddenly they were screaming down from the trees, overripe berries clutched in their paws. The splattering went on for a good five seconds before Manny was finally able to sideswipe them with his trunk.

By that time Ellie and Sid were screaming with laughter. Granted, Ellie was making half-hearted threats in between, but it was clear whose side she was on.

Then, of all the gutsy moves…Crash actually had the audacity to bound up to him with berry juice dripping from his own fur and grab hold of one his tusks with a vicious light in his eyes and ask, "Can we go to the waterfall now?"

000

"But how do you _know_ he's crazy?" Peaches huffed for the fiftieth time, crinkling her nose when Diego gave her a pointed look. "I mean, how do you know he's wrong about the dinosaurs?"

They'd been going round like this for half an hour. She'd had every intention of meeting Julian for dinner, but she knew he'd understand if she didn't show. This was more important. Even if Diego was less than impressed by her outlandish tale of sloths and dinosaur eggs and weasels.

"There'd have to be an entrance to this place somewhere nearby," she prodded, using her best demanding voice. The one that could successfully push Dad to crack if the conversation was long enough. "Has anyone actually asked him to show them how to get in?"

"No." Diego's tone was sulky. Based off his reactions, she was starting to notice when she got too close to a good point. Most of it was verbal cues, but she had gotten an ear twitch when she'd suggested that her no-nonsense father wasn't the type to make up a story like this.

"See you could ask Buck to show you! Or just track there using smells and stuff."

"Track there using _smells_ and _stuff_?" Diego mimicked, smirking at her. "I'm guessing no one has ever given you a lesson on tracking."

"I could have, if someone had been around to teach me." She glared back.

"I'm sorry I took too long surviving a near-death experience after having almost betrayed half of your family." The more Diego tried to counter her arguments with inconvenient points, like how she'd been a baby at the time and that no proof seemed to exist on the surface for this underground world, the more she wanted to rub his own absence in his face.

It was petty, but she couldn't help it.

"When do you think you'll tell him?" Julian had asked that afternoon during their short hockey game. They'd decided to hide out on the ice; partly to get in some practice, but mostly to avoid their new neighbors. Shira and Diego had offered to let them stay in their clearing for as long as they were in the area, but everyone else just assumed that two unfamiliar mammoths meant new additions to Brian's herd. They'd had information dumped on them all morning. As if they couldn't figure it out for themselves. As if they weren't already staying with anyone else.

It made Peaches feel prickly. She knew it wasn't any of their faults. It was her own annoyance at the overall situation that made their assumptions so irritating. And Diego's dismissive attitude bugged her in a way she wasn't used to. Although she suspected it had to do with his relentless indifference. He didn't care about Buck; he didn't care that her father had never mentioned him. He wasn't listening to her now; he wouldn't listen to the one lead they had.

She wished that she'd talked to Buck when she had the chance. Maybe, in a way, a part of this was her fault.

"Are you and Julian doing okay?" Diego must have seen some change in her expression because that hint of worry in his eyes was back. He'd gotten it when she'd explained how Uncle Sid had overreacted out of loneliness and insisted on keeping the dinosaur eggs. Now, he wasn't trying to hide it.

"We're fine." Peaches rolled her eyes and relaxed her shoulders. If she was a part of the problem, then she'd just fix it. On her own. And since Diego didn't look totally convinced, she added, "Your friend Claire helped us find a good hockey pond earlier so we could get in some practice." _We also talked. About things you_ won't _like_. But now was definitely not the time for that. "Oh, and apparently everyone thinks we're part of Brian's herd."

"You two chose to stay here."

"We were _invited_ to stay."

"Not by me." Diego's sly look turned into a grin, and Peaches felt the tension in her mind release.

"How do we get them to stop fussing over us?" She whined in a much different demanding tone than earlier. This one was for joking and making Dad roll his eyes in that surly way he did when he was trying to concede an argument without actually losing it.

"Why are you asking me? I'm trying to run a pack here!" Diego snapped back sarcastically before grimacing. "I can't believe I just said that. This is all your fault."

"How is it my fault?"

"Because you showed up here and-" Before he could launch into one of his long-winded explanations that usually stretched and parodied the truth more than anything else, a saber Peaches hadn't seen yet entered the clearing.

He blinked a couple of times when he saw her, as if debating whether or not to mention Brian's herd – she bristled slightly – but then looked to Diego and dipped his head. "We tracked as far as we could."

"And?"

"Nothing." It seemed for a moment like he already knew what he wanted to say next. But then he closed his mouth and waited in silence as if he was used to cutting himself off in the middle of a thought.

"Right." Diego dragged the word out, eyeing him. Then he turned to her, "Peaches, this is Jackson. He's Merle's – I mean _my_ second in command. For now."

"For now." Jackson cracked a bit of a smile at that before turning his attention to her. His dark blue eyes, deeper than Shira's, had a calm air. Diego had briefly mentioned that he was young and unsure and more or less the reason for all this. It occurred to her that her limited thoughts about carnivores had never included them being unsure about anything.

But she'd be willing to bet that Jackson had the type of confidence issues that she understood all too well. So she gave him a big smile back and introduced herself. "I'm sure you know already, but my dad…well, Diego's kind of my uncle."

There was a beat of surprised silence before Jackson said, "Oh," at the same time Diego spluttered. " _What_?"

She hadn't actually been planning on talking to him about this yet, but with everything happening so fast, maybe it was better if he started getting used to the idea now. Because if everything worked out, he'd need to get used to it eventually.

"Are you okay?" Jackson finally asked after a solid thirty seconds of Diego attempting to form a coherent comeback. He edged away a few steps when Diego fixed him with a dangerous look. "Anyway, I think I actually have some rounds to check on."

He dipped his head again, but it was impossible to miss the grin as he hurried away.

"I don't know where that came from, but we _will_ be talking about it." Diego managed to spit out a few seconds later.

"Fine. I have to go find Julian." Peaches inched away a few steps. "I'll see you later."

If Diego noticed the sneaky glint she couldn't keep out of her eyes, he didn't say anything. Instead, he raised one of his paws in a wave before turning and following after Jackson. Peaches spun and marched into the trees back to their clearing.

He didn't want to talk to Buck? Fine. She was an adult. There was no reason she couldn't do it herself. No problem.

* * *

So like I said above, this chapter did not come easily. I had a little more I wanted to include, but I think it'll go better in the next chapter. Trying to wrangle a bunch of disjointed information together was, unsurprisingly, not working. I really should know better by this point.

Thanks for reading! (And waiting) Yikes.


	13. Chapter 13

Sooo, I did the thing again. The one where I write the chapter and then fiddle with it for, like, two weeks before posting. But I'm kind of liking where this is going. I have a loose plot outline in my head, and I'm pleasantly surprised that Jackson has invited himself into more aspects than I'd originally planned for him. Good job Jackson; go-getters make good pack leaders.

* * *

"No more solos. Buddy system only," Diego said from his place a few paces ahead of Jackson, addressing the majority of the pack in front of him. "And triples if possible."

There was a massive, shared groan from the twenty-odd sabers standing in the clearing. Many of them had been shifting on their paws for the last ten minutes, unhappiness giving birth to fidgeting as Diego cut, rearranged, and otherwise completely changed everything about their normal lives.

That's what they seemed to be thinking anyway, from Peaches' perspective. She was standing off to one side, watching Diego go over new procedures.

It had been three days since the attack, but it seemed like a lifetime.

The news had eventually spread that she and Julian were connected to Diego's story and were staying with him and Shira. Their friends' specific, well-thought-out questions were worse than their earlier ignorance. Because Peaches couldn't tell them if her father and uncle had returned the baby. She didn't know how they felt about Diego. She just…didn't know anything. And with things growing more intense with the pack, she didn't really want to bring it up to Diego when he asked if there was anything else they needed. Shira could definitely tell that something was wrong, but she hadn't pushed for answers yet. Peaches and Julian agreed that it was only a matter of time.

Now, Diego was calmly addressing the mass of living annoyance and anger in front him. His posture was relaxed even if his tone wasn't, and he'd probably hate to hear it, but he seemed to be in his element here. Jackson – who was at best surprised with some of the changes, at worst angry about them – was watching him with placid attention.

"Units will stay together unless there's an emergency and we need to readjust. We've set the rotations so that everyone gets a rest and nobody gets shortchanged…"

It was a thorough plan. Or seemed to be. Peaches wasn't much for strategy, but when Diego had swiftly explained it to her before the pack's meeting, everything seemed reasonable. Jackson's composed face in the background didn't give anything away, though. Peaches had assumed he was on Diego's side, but watching him now, his stiff posture suggested that he was merely following his leader. Which might make winning herself an ally more difficult than she'd anticipated. She'd arrived unannounced before the start of the meeting – unaware that there was one – and had bumbled her way into staying. There hadn't been time to pull Jackson aside before everything got rolling, and now she watched his reactions and rehearsed her request in her head.

"We need to be tighter," Diego was saying. "Patrols are sloppy, and unorganized. The majority of sabers in this pack don't work together. It's only a matter of time until someone else gets hurt."

Another ripple of anger.

"There are too many of you not to run a better schedule. You may live _here_ and not somewhere else, and your pack leader may give you more freedom because of that, but this is still _your_ territory. Act like it."

The ripple burst into a wave of muttering.

Jackson waited a fraction of a second for them to quiet down, just as Diego did, before saying, "You know your groups and your rotations, let's get moving."

To her surprise, most of the sabers got up and left with the dismissal. Albeit _left_ as in stormed off. But nobody was charging over to start a fight or an argument. In fact, many of them slowly began making their way into their assigned clusters. It was kind of amazing to see them clear out that fast for how pissed off they obviously were.

"What do you want Isaiah?" Diego asked over his shoulder, watching the rest of the sabers leave before turning around.

Peaches blinked and then looked down and to her right to see a saber that definitely hadn't been there a few minutes ago. He didn't even glance at her, instead standing tall and meeting Diego's scrunched up expression with an impassive, proud one of his own.

"I'm here to see Merle. I take it he's resting right now." His muscled shoulders shifted as he took a few steps forward, and Peaches immediately got the sense that he wasn't like Diego and Jackson. Not at all. He was…scary.

Not that it came as a surprise. While Diego had been talking to Merle that first day, Shira had told them all about Isaiah. He was the leader of the neighboring pack, a collection of eight sabers that were _not_ a part of the hunting agreement. His territory was the boundary line between their mixed living situation and a return to real-life, predator-prey relationships.

"He's staying with Brian right now." Jackson, at least, seemed to have remembered that Peaches was still there because he'd angled his body so that he was kind of in front of her. But neither really looked at him or her. "Diego is taking over until he recovers."

"I'm the new pack leader." Diego echoed.

Isaiah blinked. Then blinked again. Then looked at Jackson and back to Diego. Then back to Jackson. And burst into laughter.

In a moment, the tense set in Diego's shoulders loosed and he rolled his eyes. But his face stayed scrunched up in annoyance. "Again, what do you want Isaiah?"

"I came to see if Merle needed any help." Isaiah laughed, barely bothering to collect himself. His taunting smile stayed. Shira had also told them that he and Diego had never gotten along, and both liked to pretend it was because they didn't like each other. If Dad's relationship with Uncle Sid had taught her anything, it was how to spot affection in the snark.

Peaches could see it now. Both sabers were glaring half-heartedly at each other. "Well I don't need your help, so go home."

"So…you've found the attacker then?"

"So…you waited a few days to come and find out?"

"Forget you."

"No, forget you. I am sick of your bad attitude. This is going to be hard enough, and I don't need you coming over here to check up on me."

"Well based on my hysterical laughter, I figured you _knew_ that I didn't know. You really are stupid. I can't believe Merle would…"

"Did you need something?" Jackson leaned towards her quietly as the two sabers launched into a sarcastic, ridiculous argument that seemed to be covering the entire history of their relationship.

"Um, yeah, I wanted to talk to you." Peaches lowered her voice too as Jackson turned to look her in the eye. He raised his eyebrows at the fact she'd come for him. That wasn't exactly an encouraging start. "I need your help."

"My help?"

She quickly explained, again, about Buck and how she'd spent the better part of the day before looking for him.

"I think he went home," Jackson said when she finished. He didn't look pleased at having told her that, and she wanted to believe it was because he did like Diego and wanted to support him. But then she frowned at him. He was _her_ ally. Even if he didn't know it yet. He actually looked chagrined at the change in her expression. "I'm sorry, Peaches."

"How do I find him?"

"You don't," he shrugged. "Diego meant it when he said we don't know where he comes from or where he goes when he leaves. We patrol this area constantly, and no one has ever found his entrance. Ever."

"Well apparently you don't patrol it that well." She almost regretted saying that. Jackson's sad face was _very_ emotionally persuasive. She told herself she didn't feel bad. "Do you know _anything_?"

"When Buck leaves he's as good as gone until he shows up again." Jackson hesitated just long enough to tell Peaches he didn't think he should be saying what was coming next. But he did anyway. "He smells…weird to me. He smells too much like plants, more than the other herbivores that live here. And there's a dryness there too…I…." He trailed off, and Peaches waited for him to go on. Because there was _more_. She could hear it in the silence. But Jackson just shut his mouth and looked up at her angrily, like she'd pushed too hard and now he regretted what he'd said.

That _did_ make her feel bad, but she also knew that she was one of the only animals that understood how bad this situation could get. "Jackson." Peaches waited until they'd locked eyes before continuing. "You saw what happened to your pack leader. I don't want that to happen to anyone else. Please."

He was angry-silent for a moment. She couldn't tell if he was more irritated with her or himself for getting them into this conversation. "I could try to figure out a way to get my packmates to keep an eye out. You know, on the down low." He finally grimaced.

"Sounds like a reasonable request." Peaches nodded and offered him an apologetic smile. "Thanks Jackson."

"You're welcome." He nodded back once, and they both glanced over to where Diego and Isaiah were still talking. The two of them must have gotten the insult-slinging out of their systems because they looked actually serious and concerned. Their heads were together, and their voices had lowered.

They watched the sabers for a moment before Jackson looked up at her. "Did Shira and Diego tell you? That the triplets are coming back?"

"Yeah, they did." Peaches turned back to him as well, a thrill going along her spine and down into her legs. This was one meeting she was actually dreading.

"They should be here in the next couple of days." Jackson eyed her expression.

"Yeah." She tried to keep her voice perky, but it wasn't convincing. For some reason Peaches had assumed Shira and Diego were childless rather than empty nesters. Julian seemed to have guessed before she did, though, because he had been way less surprised when they casually mentioned that their kids should be returning from their own little roaming trip soon.

She squirmed a little to get rid of the manic, absurd feelings that had come with the news. Jealousy that their kids had been allowed to travel away from home without more than non-guilt-inducing goodbyes and an, "I love you." Irrational anger that Diego wasn't just…hers. Fear that the family they'd just tumbled their way into wouldn't, ultimately, want them to stay. Intimidation because everything she'd heard so far from their neighbors was either glowing praise or specific, nitpicky complaining about one of the daughters. They sounded tough, sarcastic, and overall in control of their lives. Basically everything Peaches wasn't.

"Shira said we're welcome to come, but I don't want to barge in on their family time," Peaches whispered back after a too-long silence.

To her surprise, Jackson didn't answer. He simply burst into laughter. It was loud and kind of frantic and totally different than everyone else's reactions and comments. It also made Diego and Isaiah break out of their conversation long enough to look at them. For the first time, Isaiah looked directly at her.

She knew the moment he decided that he didn't know who she was because his slightly worried expression hardened into an emotionless void. "I see Brian has added to his herd. I'm sure you know where the boundaries are. I don't care that we've met, I don't care that you live here, if you come into my territory you are prey."

"Noted," Peaches answered. His mood shifts so far left her less than surprised at his sudden attitude change. She gave him a small smile anyway. "And I'm not part of Brian's herd. My husband and I are here visiting."

"Where from?" She hadn't expected the interested look that his eyes picked up, and she fumbled a little to describe their journey and the home that they'd left. He nodded along, every once in a while twitching his ears at something she'd said, and looking vaguely amused once she described the stretch of coast and inland forest that they'd settled in the last time they'd moved. Once she was done, he said, "My second in command is traveling through some of that area on his way north to gather information about their climate. But he's alone, so large game will be out of his abilities."

"And sabers usually don't waste time on anything smaller than a deer. Or smellier than one." Jackson added firmly from beside her.

Peaches took his cue to move on and changed the subject to the other piece of information she was still trying to wrap her head around. "That's right, Brian wants everyone to come for some kind of a meeting."

It seemed like that was all she'd been hearing about. Everyone was worried about the weather, and it sounded like most herds and packs within a two- or three-days' walk were all experiencing the same relentless storms and dipping temperatures. Brian had invited them to come for a meeting so they could talk through their options and try to figure out this strange, sudden problem. While it sounded like it was creating a bit of a headache for the locals, Peaches could understand why they needed to come. The sense that something was wrong kind of lived in the background, present everywhere they went and in every conversation they had.

Day by day, strangers were finding their way to the area to talk about the problems they were having at home. Most opted to stay within the pack and herd's territory, but some were uncomfortable with the sabers wandering around and instead settled on the fringes of Isaiah's territory. Peaches tried not to think about the saber in front of her happily picking off the newcomers.

"We'll see how that goes." Isaiah glanced at Diego in an obvious way that implied the other saber knew, or maybe shared, his opinion on the matter. Then he turned back to Peaches. "Stay out of my territory."

He left without a goodbye.

"He likes you." Diego said mere seconds later, probably still within earshot of the retreating saber. He looked like he was in a better mood than when the meeting had started. "We're meeting the kids in a couple of days. We'll talk more about it once they get closer."

"Sounds," miserable, "good."

"I think we need to do some drop-in checks." Jackson said, pulling the attention away from that pitiful answer. "Merle sometimes trusts us to follow orders a little too much on some of the more mundane duties."

Diego nodded at him. "I can believe that. Let's do some rounds too. I want to see if there are any spots we're not canvassing well enough."

Jackson's, "Yep," was conspicuously toneless, and it was hard not to grin at how easy this may prove to be. She'd have to not rub it in his face as a thank you.

"Well, I suppose I…should be going. Good _luck_ with everything." Peaches backed up a few steps, ignoring Jackson's quick look that seemed to say, _Come on girl, be cool_.

"We'll see you two later." Diego answered in a firm voice. He was trying really hard to make time for them despite the chaos. Another wave of confused feelings went through her, and Peaches just gave him a distorted smile in answer.

Jackson just nodded at her one more time. She waved her trunk at him once, in acknowledgement and thanks for what they both knew he was going to have to do under Diego's nose, and hurried away to start a new search of her own.

000

They went to the waterfall the next afternoon.

Manny claimed it was so that he could get the last of the berry juice out of his fur, ruffling his thick coat in grumpy annoyance at its mention. But really it was because Crash and Eddie wanted to burn off some energy, and the rest of the herd really needed to go somewhere other than their small clearing and the area surrounding it.

Whatever disturbance Gary claimed that everyone else was afraid of didn't keep them from running into multiple familiar faces on their way there. Manny put his trunk around Sid's shoulders when Francine flounced by without looking their way. The sloth slumped further than his usual poor posture the rest of the way to the lake.

But he perked up when they reached the water's edge, and before Manny or Ellie could yell out a reminder to be careful, the sloth and possums were going their separate ways. Sid out to the ice to skate around, the possums to climb the slick rocks and logs at the water's edge, creating slides everywhere they went and generally trying to be in multiple places at once.

Manny and Ellie stayed back and watched them, the silence uncomfortable and loaded. For as much as he loved his wife, Manny wasn't going to be the one to break it. She was always better at it than him anyway. Her comforting words, or occasional forceful ultimatums, always seemed to strike the right tone to start them off.

So he waited.

They were standing side by side, both apparently waiting for the other to find a comfortable spot to lay down. Again, Manny waited, trying to resist the urge to glance at her. But after two minutes their standoff began to feel more ridiculous than anything else, and when his eyes did dart her way, she was already looking at him.

They both looked away.

Fine. She won. Manny looked at her properly this time. "There's nothing we can do right now."

The words surprised even him. An echo of what she'd been repeating so far, and more than true. When she looked his way, he could see the tenuous look on her face. She believed it. Or she wanted to at least. But he'd been right to assume that she was also struggling with this.

"I don't know what else we could do." Manny added quietly once they'd stared at each other for a moment.

"Me neither." She murmured back, tears rimming her eyes as she reached her trunk towards him. He took it and stepped closer. There was a sad silence, and for a moment he just let himself feel it. There _was_ nothing they could do. They were no longer in charge. The kids were on their own. And even though he'd watched his daughter swing confidently, feet-first into a self-described captain, he wondered for a moment if Peaches could handle this. He was even more surprised when the immediate, unconscious answer was yes.

"Manny…I want to talk to you about Sid." Ellie's voice was muffled for a moment as he finished riding out the surprise at his confidence.

"You…what?" He asked when he finally thought it through to the part where she said Sid. She wanted to talk to him about Sid?

"Well…I've been thinking about this for a while and, and I just think that you need to talk to him more."

He was too slow to completely hide his laughter, and it came out as a choked snort. "I think he does enough talking for the both of us."

"And that's my point." She maneuvered lithely around to face him, dropping his trunk as she turned. "He seems so sad sometimes. There's obviously something going on. I know he misses his family, and I just think that you should ask him about it more. Me talking to him is one thing, but you know him better than I do, and he's closer to you."

He _was_ close to Sid. And he could guess exactly what the sloth was sad about, even if he hadn't actually witnessed this particular instance. But he didn't know how to tell Ellie that it was more than likely just grief-driven mood swings. What Ellie was seeing was obviously nothing. " _We're_ his family."

"I'm not sure if he knows that." She answered seriously, as if Sid would _ever_ question it.

"Trust me, it's fine." He tried to make his voice more reassuring, adding, "Guys don't talk to guys about guy problems. We just…punch each other on the shoulder!"

He demonstrated with a gentle, well-placed nudge on her shoulder and smiled widely. She stared back with a flat look that looked all but impressed. "That's stupid."

"To a _girl_." He coaxed. "But to a guy…that's…that's like six months of therapy!"

Silence and a deadpan expression. Probably to give her time to perfect the twenty-minute lecture that was about to follow.

"Sid will talk to me when he needs to."

"No, he obviously won't. I don't think I've seen you two have more than five serious conversations since we met. And I'd be willing to bet three out of the five were him talking to you." She was wearing that angry face she got when a situation was both upsetting _and_ confusing to her. "I can't believe that you don't even notice when he's upset! Can't you tell that something is bothering him? Unless you somehow magically already know what's going on."

He sighed. This was getting way too close. "Ellie, it's fine. Please just trust me?"

For as much as he felt a twinge of guilt whenever their idle conversations came and went around this topic, he didn't think that now was the time to tell her. With the kids and the strange storms…he didn't want to make her more upset. And despite what she thought, he didn't need Sid wandering over while they were trying to talk and having to deal with a full-blown meltdown on the sloth's part. He wasn't in the mood today.

Besides, Sid had made it very clear years ago that he wanted to be the one in charge of when they talked about it and when they didn't. And after everything his best friend had done for him, Manny was more than happy to repay the favor by letting him have his way. In truth, he was a little surprised that Ellie had never figured out the difference between Sid's compulsive need to tell them everything else and his sudden, jarring silences.

Then again, maybe she _was_ finally picking up on it. Of course it would be now, at the most inconvenient time. Not that the rest of his life wasn't already like that.

"I trust you." She started, and he already knew, he _knew_ , what she was going to follow with-

"ELLIE! MANNY!"

The possums' voices were panicked. And they _never_ yelled for the both of them. Both mammoths immediately turned away from each other, looking around for Crash or Eddie or some other obvious problem. But there was only Sid, standing still in surprise a little way out on the ice. Their eyes met, and then Crash and Eddie were yelling their names again from somewhere farther away, maybe behind Sid judging by how muffled it sounded.

But their, " _Help_!" was loud and clear.

Ellie took off first with Manny right behind her, running the edge of the lake, trying to stay on the hard-packed, old snow rather than on the ice-covered patches. Sid was fairly fast on the ice – pretty much the only time the sloth was fast – and he skated and fumbled his way toward the towering, frozen flow of the falls.

It was so cold that most of the water had frozen by now, and what little was coming down was a dull roar from the back side with only a few sprays and trickles on the front. And that seemed to be where the possums' voices were coming from.

They called intermittently, hesitantly, as if afraid to shout too much in their fear. And they sounded _terrified_. Manny didn't think he'd ever heard them sound like this. He ran just a little bit faster.

They reached the far side of the waterfall at the same time, skidding to a stop on the lake's edge about twenty paces away from the small, cave-like area behind the falls. The possums were looking out at them from the entrance, and Crash motioned frantically with one of his paws for them to come closer. Eddie simply turned and went farther inside.

Sid came sliding to a stop just outside of the cave mouth and glided a few paces to peer inside. Manny watched him stumble back a moment later, tripping over his paws and landing on his butt in the sunlight. He pushed himself up with his front paws, staring frozenly at whatever they couldn't see inside.

Ellie was already making her way across the ice by the time the sloth had sat up, and Manny hurried down after her, trying to catch up to her unafraid and determined strides. He trailed her all the way over, and both mammoths stopped a few paces later when they entered the small ice enclosure and saw what the possums had found.

The saber was unconscious and lying flat on his left side. His head and neck were curled inward toward his chest, and his massive, clawed paws were spread next to him.

The roaring of the water around them seemed to get louder for a moment, and there was no question of what had happened to him. The top of the waterfall was slicked over with ice, and there were large holes at the top where the still-flowing water came down. If he'd slipped on the bank, especially during the night, he might not have been able to keep himself from falling through one of those right down into the water.

There were no visible injuries on the exposed side of his body, but the drop was long, and he'd probably passed out on impact or shortly after. In the next moment, Manny was taking in the exact placement of his body and shortly realized that he must have been conscious enough to haul himself out of the freezing water. Ice had formed around his outline, and the water left in his fur had frozen the tips of his coat a brittle, opaque white.

Now, Crash and Eddie were looking back at them with wide-eyed, innocent worry. Waiting for them to know what to do.

"This is bad." Sid lisped, looking frantically between all of them and wringing his paws. He'd climbed back to his feet as the others slowly worked through their surprise.

"You found him like this?" Ellie asked.

Eddie explained how they'd spotted him as they were trying to figure out how best to climb the frozen part of the waterfall – exactly what Manny and Ellie always told them not to do – and they hadn't known what he was at first. When they were sure he wasn't going to pounce forward and try to eat them headfirst, they'd called for help. Neither seemed all that scared, merely excited by the events. And worried. Which was different than usual, and Manny's heart sunk a little at where he could see this was going. Because it was becoming more and more obvious that their terror wasn't for themselves.

First thing was first, though. "Has he moved since you found him? And are we sure he's not dead?"

"He's not; he's breathing." Eddie cast a glance at him.

"We tried to pull him farther away from the water, but he's really heavy." Crash shouldered his way past his brother. "We couldn't even lift his head."

"You shouldn't have gotten close to him." Manny glanced between the saber and the possums, trying to figure out which was going to cause a problem first. Probably the possums. "And you should have come to get us immediately."

"We didn't want to leave him here by himself if he was awake." Eddie said, real concern in his voice for once. Sometimes it bothered Manny how mature the brothers could be. "Now what do we do with him?"

"Do you think his pack is around here somewhere?" Crash volunteered, looking around as if they'd missed some sabers lurking in the shadows.

Eddie nodded, looking around too. "Probably. Aren't all sabers in packs?"

"Ooh, not if he went solo."

"That would be super cool. He's probably, like, a lone rebel."

"Yes, all sabers have packs." Manny snapped.

"And they probably are around here." Sid added nervously.

"We need to help him get back to them!" Eddie's face brightened.

"They'll probably attack us." Crash added, but his tone was anything but fearful.

"But not if he tells them we helped him-"

"Let me see him." Ellie shouldered her way forward, splintering off their spiraling conversation. Before Manny could stop her, she ran her trunk across the top of the saber's head and down his neck to one of his shoulders. He didn't move a muscle. When he still didn't move a few moments later, Crash and Eddie took that as their cue to approach him as well.

"He's really cold." Crash said after a minute of inspection as he poked at his spine.

Eddie was examining one of his paws and struggling under its weight. The two were roughly the same size. "Yeah, like freezing. I wonder if he'll have amnesia or something."

"I wish I had amnesia." Crash announced as he plucked at the frost in the darker scruff along the saber's neck. Ellie swatted him away as she continued to check him over.

But Manny was watching Sid. Their conversation seemed to have distracted him for a moment, but now he was definitely sinking into the reality of what was happening. Standing off to one side and leaning slightly away from the scene, it was clear he was trying unsuccessfully to distance himself. His eyes were narrowed, and he was looking suspiciously at the carnivore's prone form, as if expecting him to wake up and attack at any moment.

Manny glanced at the saber again. This one was a brighter orange with greyish-white coloring in the usual places. He looked pretty young too. Probably just barely an adult.

Ellie pulled her trunk back with a motherly frown. "He doesn't seem to have anything broken, but we need to get him warmed up."

At that, Crash and Eddie looked between her and the saber, as if not quite sure they'd heard their sister right. "So we're keeping him?" Eddie's eyes lit up when his sister didn't immediately go back on her suggestion.

"What?" Sid yelped.

"No one is keeping anyone." Ellie said before Manny could. But it was more exasperated than reassuring.

"Aw!"

Come on!"

Ignoring their whiny protests, Manny glanced down at Sid's tense body. The sloth had gone back to staring at the saber in stunned, furious silence. But he didn't join in the complaining. He wouldn't have meant it anyway. He knew they couldn't leave the saber here. They all did. Manny reached out, but as soon as the tip of his trunk touched the sloth's shoulder, Sid turned and ducked underneath it to stomp his way back outside.

"Let's just all get out of here." Manny said before Ellie or the possums noticed. He stepped forward and gingerly wrapped his trunk around the carnivore's middle. He could tell about how much he'd weigh just by the look of him – more than it seemed like he should – and he wasn't surprised when he had to put in extra effort to heft the saber over his shoulder blades.

Sid was waiting for them outside on the bank, and he wouldn't look at Manny. But he did fall into step beside him as they carefully made their way back to their clearing.

The strange sounds Gary had described made sense now. They'd lost track of the intruder because he hadn't made it through the area. And of course their herd would be the ones to find him. An unconscious, injured, saber. Just their luck. He probably _did_ have amnesia to top it all off.

The walk back seemed to take forever, and Crash and Eddie were uncharacteristically silent. They spent most of the time on Ellie's back, talking quietly and quickly into each other's ears. As if that would make it less obvious that they were scheming.

When they reached their clearing, the possums dropped to the ground and quickly moved out of the way so that Ellie could carefully reach up and take the saber off of his back. Manny heard her grunt when she had to bear the brunt of his weight.

He helped her get him settled in a spot that none of them ever slept in.

"Sid, can you make a fire?" Ellie asked once they'd gotten him down. Manny glanced backwards to where she was looking.

For a moment, with his arms slouched at his sides, the sloth looked like he was going to tell her no. But then he rallied without meeting her eyes and nodded. He turned immediately and made his way into the trees.

After a few failed tries at getting the saber to lay on his stomach, they gave up and let him flop on his side with his legs fanned out the way they'd found him. In the clearer lighting, there was definitely a bump on his head. Doubtless he'd be bruised in multiple places under his fur. If he lived.

His breathing wasn't exactly shallow, but it wasn't peaceful either. It seemed like his lungs were just going through the motions more than anything else, and he literally hadn't moved yet. Manny didn't know that much about injuries, but it didn't seem like a good sign that he was still out cold.

And they had no idea what was going to happen when, or if, he woke up.

"Ellie." Manny kept his voice at a low murmur as the twins ran around picking up ridiculously small twigs for the fire, trying to help too. When she looked up at him, he allowed himself to be openly worried. "Be careful. Please."

"I will be." But she smirked a little, like she'd more than expected his word of caution, and went back to checking the saber over. When she carefully picked his head up and put it at a less neck-pain-inducing angle, he looked away.

Sid returned with his usual armful of sticks a few minutes later, and he dumped them in the usual spot. His eyes trailed from where the sticks were to where the saber was, and after another moment of deliberation, he collected them once more and brought them closer to where Ellie was fussing. She gave him a warm smile when she saw what he was doing and went back to her nitpicking. But Manny continued to watch Sid. The sloth glanced at the saber a few times, but it was quick each time, and he always seemed more comfortable once his focus was back on the rocks and sticks.

Manny knew that Ellie wanted the two of them to talk more, but for him, this was what taking care of Sid looked like. The sloth liked to talk, and he liked to share his emotions. Most of the time. But it was important to Manny that his best friend knew how to take the space and time that he needed to sort out his feelings rather than brushing them aside. He _wanted_ Sid to be quiet sometimes and to know that, that was okay too. While Manny couldn't take credit for much in this herd, Sid's slow, agonizing transition into a more emotionally well-rounded sloth was something that he _was_ obscenely proud of. Even if glimpses of those changes were few and far between.

When Sid caught his eyes, Manny nodded emotionlessly to him. Sid nodded back a little too quickly, but his shoulders relaxed as he finally got the kindling to catch fire.

Off to the side, Crash and Eddie had slowed down and were keeping a safe distance from where Ellie was finishing up checking the saber. She looked up at her brothers and smiled, as if any of this was a good thing, and then stood up. "We'll need to make sure that the fire stays going all night long guys."

"We'll have to take watches." Manny corrected as she made her way over and settled down next to him. He'd been foolish to fall asleep so easily the last time. Then again, his family hadn't been involved. At least, that wasn't how he'd seen Sid yet.

"He'll need someone checking on him and making sure he's okay if he wakes up." Ellie agreed pointedly, yawning and smiling like she'd outdone him as the possums and Sid went back to what they were doing. "Wake me up when it's my turn." She poked his leg with her trunk for good-humored measure and snuggled in next to him. But, changing her mind, lifted her head to look him in the eye with that all-business look he'd learned to fear. "You two _will_ have a conversation before this is all over."

When she glanced at Sid, Manny did too. He was diligently adding more kindling in a human-tent pattern to keep the flames high and bright. Predictably, he didn't notice them looking.

Manny huffed. He had forgotten about their earlier conversation, but apparently she hadn't. He frowned at her stern expression. "I'll think about it."

Her eyebrows raised a fraction.

"We'll talk about it later."

They went a little higher.

"Trust me, he's fine."

One cocked above the other, and he knew if he took one more conversational step, she'd unleash whatever it was she'd been about to say earlier on him. He briefly considered letting her have at it. In a way, this was worth an argument to him. But then he remembered the carnivore lying a too-short distance away and relented.

A single nod, and she was satisfied. He watched her lay her head back down and close her eyes. Then he looked once, quickly, at Sid and the saber. The former was diligently ignoring the latter, and Manny supposed they _would_ have a conversation about this. It was probably inevitable. If Ellie got her way in the process…well, she usually did. And she was usually right in the end. So, win, win.

Crash and Eddie were oblivious, as always, to their conversation and the overarching tension, and they played until the sun was long gone behind the trees. Then they found their usual spots, in a choice branch location according to Eddie, and were snoring in a ridiculously short amount of time. Sid was a little more on edge, but the sloth's go-to was to fix things with copious amounts of sleep, so he eventually made his way over to his spot – deliberated for a moment and scooted a little closer to Manny than usual – and was slumbering soon enough.

That left Manny awake, alone, and still in moderate shock. The fire crackled and jumped, and he laid in the silence, thinking. The saber across from him still hadn't moved, but the condensation on his fur had melted, and it was an even brighter orange than it had been earlier. It also somehow made him look even more injured and vulnerable. Any mammoth in their right mind would take the opportunity and end this now. But Manny had always lived with the sense, especially after what happened up north, that this was the real difference between carnivores and herbivores. Sabers killed to eat because they had to. While Manny could believe more than a few of them were just bloodthirsty in general, he'd had the opportunity to learn for a fact that it wasn't true for them all. And herbivores lived a comparatively more passive life, only taking the violent route to defend against threats. Right now, this saber simply didn't have the option of being a threat.

When he came to, he'd no doubt cause some problems, but Manny wasn't afraid of a single, injured carnivore. If anything, he was more afraid of the rest of his herd's reaction when the saber figured out he wouldn't be able to push them around and insisted on leaving. Ellie would doubtless make every attempt to get him to stay, and Crash and Eddie would all but hang on him until he got fed up. Manny would probably end up chasing him off, still injured, back to his pack.

There'd be a discussion and some emotions he didn't want to deal with, and they would decide if they needed to move on or if it was safe enough to stay. Maybe they'd even be able to get him to hint at how many of them there were around here. Manny wasn't sure what his limit was anymore, now that he wasn't living alone in a nihilistic fog and looking over his shoulder every minute or two for danger. But even with two mammoths, they probably couldn't take on more than five or six of them, especially with Sid and the possums as liabilities.

This was, overall, a massively stupid decision on their parts. Sabers always meant danger. They'd essentially just guaranteed trouble for themselves. But, even knowing that, even after all of this, after all these years, Manny knew they couldn't have left him there. Not again.

* * *

The impending pack/herd meeting that the characters keep referencing is loosely inspired by Michelle Paver's _Chronicles of Ancient Darkness_ series. The books are set six thousand years ago in Europe, and the characters live in clans. At one point, before the events of the series, there's a clan meet that the main character attends with his father. I tend to think of my story's meeting as being a similar gathering of animals.

(I also highly recommend the _Chronicles of Ancient Darkness_. It's a fantastic middle grade series (and still totally worth a read if you're older than a middle schooler). The sheer detail of Paver's worldbuilding is so impressive, and the characters are deep and well developed. I cannot overstate how wonderful these books are.)


	14. Chapter 14

Shira was lolling on her back when he found her, flirting with a nap but clearly waiting to be disturbed.

She'd been up at daybreak the day before, rising so quietly he almost hadn't heard her. And she'd been gone into the trees before he was awake enough to ask where she was going or if she was planning on being back for the pack meeting. But apparently her stealthy exit was supposed to serve as a _no_. He'd been busy throughout the day, and by the time he finally made it back to the pack's clearing, long after the sun had set, she'd already been asleep.

She'd been gone again when he woke up this morning.

Diego stopped just short of where she was sunbathing, placing himself in her line of sight, their faces level from her spot on the saber-sized boulder.

"How'd the pack meeting go?" She was smiling. She already knew.

"Terrible. And Jackson thought so too even though he wouldn't say it." He'd actually been mostly silent as they traced a path through the snow afterwards. A kind of silent that Diego remembered all too well. It was an absence. Of thought, of security, of a way to say _no, I don't want to get this human baby for you_ …

Shira looked dubious, but he knew that she understood whether she wanted to or not.

The three of them really were their own club. All seconds. All ready to follow orders and spring into action or stop dead at a moment's notice. All-too-familiar with unpredictable leaders. Diego's lurking horror welled for a moment. He hadn't known when he agreed to take over that Jackson would be this difficult. It wasn't a difficult he was used to. He wasn't Soto, but he _could_ be from Jackson's point of view. And he'd never know it because the kid wouldn't tell him. He'd almost forgotten the multiple levels of miscommunication that packs often suffered from.

But they could talk more about him later. "The rest of them aren't listening to me either."

"It _sounds_ like they are."

"Only because they have to. All they're doing is following the leader; it's not real participation." For as much as Diego didn't like the idea that Jackson potentially saw him as a tyrant, these changes weren't meant to be popular. The pack was more disorganized than he'd ever realized. If he was going to do this…well, it was going to be right.

"Don't tell me I have to remind _you_ that, that's what a pack is."

They gave each other deadpan looks for a moment, and even though he knew that this was the conversation they'd end up in if he came looking for her, he wasn't trying to drag it out. He had things to do, a pack to run. "Where did you disappear off to this morning anyway?" _And left me to do this completely by myself._

"Talking to Merle. Keeping an eye on our niece and nephew."

"Please don't call them that." He still hadn't broached the whole "uncle" topic yet. He wasn't…ready. He'd quickly realized that he didn't even like _thinking_ about talking to her about it, and he certainly hadn't been about to do it when she showed up unexpectedly before the pack meeting. Peaches was a force of nature, and not in the physical way most mammoths were.

The one relief was that she seemed to be getting along with Jackson. That was good.

Shira gave him a look and rolled over so that they were face-to-face, right-side up. "Have Isaiah's scouts caught the kids' scent yet?"

"No." Diego frowned at the added insult to injury. "And I would know, because he came over this morning to be his usual self. But you probably had a chat with him too."

"I caught him briefly on his way out. He wanted me to tell you that he _doesn't_ like the new mammoth and you need to take back what you said to her."

He just snorted. "Sure. Whenever I find time to see Peaches in the next week, I'll lead with that. You said you talked to Merle? How is he?"

"He's…only just starting to heal. I wouldn't be in any hurry to turn the pack back over to him."

"I'm not," he lied, "But I knew that this would be way more work than he thinks. And I know that I'm just beating my own head against a rock trying to do something about it, but I can't stand running his current rotations."

"I know."

"Do you?" It would be nice if he could tell himself straight that it was easy for Shira to remove herself from the situation because she hadn't liked pack life to begin with. And at the moment, he didn't care that it was more complicated than that. "Because so far you haven't had to deal with any of it."

"I love you, but I don't want a repeat of my entire life, thank you."

"And I do?"

"You never made it to being pack leader." She finished that statement with a prim head tilt.

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"It seems like you have it all under control."

"Kitty."

"Is that supposed to convince me?"

Diego just shook his head at her raised eyebrow, the sparkle in those glacier eyes. Shira held her expression for another moment, "You focus on the pack. I'll take care of everything else."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The glacier cracked apart into a dangerous smile. "One of us needs to keep tabs on Peaches."

Diego scrunched his nose at that. "You don't need to keep tabs on her." As far as he could tell, Julian was the one who was more likely to need babysitting. The kid had fake sneezed and gotten himself stuck to the snow.

"Don't I?" Shira rose with the words and leapt down next to him, keeping pace as he turned so that they maneuvered around each other like the start of a brawl. She took a further step forward so that their faces were uncomfortably close, an intimidation tactic he'd seen her use before when she wanted to shortcut what would likely be a drawn-out argument. "Because I can guarantee that only one of us knows _exactly_ where she is right now."

Okay, fine. Maybe something was going on with Peaches that he didn't know about. He had no doubt Shira knew what she was talking about, but none of this was successfully distracting him from the reason he'd come to find _her_. "You couldn't have just _said_ that's why you disappeared this morning?"

She lifted her chin and those eyes hardened back to ice. Too far. "You didn't need me there this morning because you're already doing all of this by yourself."

"But-"

"Pack leader is a one saber job. Besides, I can't deprive Jackson of the learning experience." And before he could start in on how Jackson wasn't learning anything from him except how to take orders from someone that wasn't qualified to give them, she added, "So do what you need to do and know that I've got your back."

For the second time that day, she was gone before he could ask where she was going.

000

Manny found Sid a little way away from their clearing about midmorning. Or rather, the sloth found him where Manny had positioned himself near a quiet outcropping that looked out toward the valley to the northeast. He didn't turn as Sid crunched through the snow to stand next to him.

"Morning." He'd known Sid would seek him out eventually, and once Manny was sure Ellie would be okay without him for a while, he'd gone in search of breakfast and a place to wait.

Out of the corner of his eye, the sloth's shoulders slumped. "Hey."

"Sleep okay?"

Sid shrugged at the ground. Which was a fitting response given how stressfully uneventful the day had been so far.

The saber had woken a couple of times during the night, groggy and clearly in pain, with heavy-lidded eyes that blinked into the darkness absently. He didn't seem capable of registering what was going on around him with any amount of clarity, and nothing about his swaying head and quick returns to unconsciousness were threatening. He'd been soundly asleep since the pinkish morning haze was just showing on the horizon, having spent what little energy he had on those short bursts of wakefulness.

He was helpless.

Manny had thought taking care of a sick saber would bother him more, but he was mostly concerned for Ellie and her uncanny knack to wake when the saber was awake even when it wasn't her turn to be on watch. He didn't want her getting sick or worn down. They couldn't afford it right now. And the possums were…well they'd been quiet. And that was, of course, never a good thing.

Second only to Sid, currently staring morosely into the distance. He looked better than Manny had thought he would, but Sid could be unwittingly subtle at times. Every once in a while, he had a hard time guessing accurately what the sloth was thinking and feeling. But the fact he'd been up and gone shortly after it was light definitely wasn't a good sign.

This was probably the time to lay it all out. Based off of how sleepy their unwitting guest was, they were going to be stuck with him for at least a day or two. And if Ellie had any say in it, and she'd probably dominate the conversation, it might even be longer than that.

Although Manny was still holding out hope that the saber would melodramatically storm off prematurely. It certainly wouldn't be surprising, sabers seemed to be temperamental even when not under direct threat. Like when they were needled about their ability to stop and ask for directions. That had been a _long_ afternoon of Sid and him tag-teaming making fun of the deep frown that had spread over their new acquaintance's face as they moved on from the squirrel's mute attempt at directions. The two of them never had figured out what he was trying to convey.

"I should probably go check the fire." Sid's voice, the difference between now and what it had been trekking through the endless miles of snowy emptiness that day, pulled him back to where the two of them were currently standing.

"I know that you don't like this…"

"He shouldn't be here." Sid muttered.

"I know."

"It's not fair."

"…I know."

"And what if he gets better and attacks us!" Sid's voice rose desperately. "Or what if he leads his pack back here?"

"I think we'll be more ready for it than we were the first time."

"What if…what if his leader is like Gutt?"

"Then we'll just get some hyraxes to climb all over him. Besides, Gutt was crazy."

Manny didn't know why, but every once in a while, he found himself digging through those memories for…something. He wasn't sure. That three days of back and forth between the two of them and Gutt's ragtag group made him feel uneasy long past when life had returned to normal. There was something so final about Half Peak, and when he thought of _those_ three days, it was almost always focused on the time the three of them had spent together, or the one on one fight he'd been forced to watch from that small corner of rock he'd been backed into. He could still clearly remember the snarling, vicious tumbling. Claws making silent slices through fur and the too-dull thud of a skull hitting rock.

And that moment, when the leader turned and their eyes locked. For some reason, that was all Manny really remembered of him. He didn't know who he was, his name, why he'd plunged them all into this situation in the first place, nothing. All Manny knew was that he wanted the baby and that if somebody didn't do something, he'd kill them all. And he had killed. Someone. And the bits and pieces of a new life they hadn't even started living yet. And that was the end of it.

But Gutt was a whole world onto himself. He was _different_. In a way that Manny didn't like to think about but found himself uselessly drawn to over and over again. That saber had been out for himself but Gutt…there was always the sense that he was out for someone else.

In fact, one of his clearest memories, Gutt pacing across the deck late that first afternoon, was one of the scenes that stuck with him the most. As the crew bustled around their captain, after having serenaded them with that poorly composed, hero-worship song, Gutt seemed restless. His earlier keen eyes had taken on an edgy glint and he'd gone back and forth, almost oblivious to what was going on around him, muttering. It was something about unfaithful crew members, betrayal, a plot to undo him.

 _Faithless… saved…gave everything and then…how_ dare _she…went...bad, bad…are still here but she isn't… gone…doesn't understand…why…why…why…_

Every once in a while, the rabbit that kept reminding them all that he was the first mate would glance over, eyes filling with uncharacteristic concern and fear. But he never intervened, and when he went back to whatever he was doing, he seemed hurt more than anything else. And just having Manny and Sid on board seemed to spark a reaction in Gutt that the rest of the crew didn't quite know what to do with. He was a distraction instead of a director, and a part of Manny still wondered if Gutt had failed to guard them adequately because he wanted to see if they'd try to escape and leave him.

Even the thought, let alone the implications, was unsettling, and Manny usually, unwillingly, followed these memories up with the wondering if the decisive end to their last fight had saved more than just his own family. He didn't like to think that the answer very well might be _yes_.

"We've already dealt with the worst." He added, pulling himself out of those sharp memories to where Sid was standing, the only other one who had been with him through it all. "We'll get through this too."

Silence for a moment. Then Sid looked up at him. "What would have happened? If Diego could have stayed?"

Manny almost never thought his name if he didn't have to. And it had never occurred to him until that instant. For a moment, he couldn't think fast enough. Couldn't imagine a response that could make this better, couldn't imagine that life…not until the image of Sid limping his way along the migratory route, trying to escape the impending flood, came to mind. "Well, I don't think you would have ended up stuck in the possums' burrow holes, getting rocks fired at you." Or, more accurately, Sid would have ended up in the same position but with a smirking, sarcastic audience. He couldn't even imagine having a saber around for his brothers-in-law to antagonize. Someone would have definitely died by now. And it almost certainly wouldn't have been the possums. He had a creeping suspicion it would have turned out to be his already strung-out sanity. "And I doubt you would have wandered off looking for dinosaur eggs."

" _Found_ dinosaur eggs."

"That you didn't give back. No need to drag Diego into this."

Sid smiled for a moment at the thought, something he almost never did when they talked about this. "Ah, it all turned out fine. Buck helped us."

"Yeah _fine_." Manny scoffed. He'd had to fight his way through a seemingly never-ending hoard of dinosaurs while his mate fought for her life, while in labor, waiting for him to get to her. It had worked out but…it certainly hadn't been ideal. "And you survived a river of lava for the second time."

"Waterfall." Sid corrected, "It was much worse because of the waterfall."

He'd give him that one. But before he could agree, another tremor shook the earth under them, and Sid wobbled with the movement, looking around himself frantically for anything stable before finally settling on Manny's leg and latching himself onto it. The shifting stopped a few moments later, but the sloth didn't let go.

He mumbled something into Manny's fur.

"I can't hear you." He grumbled into the fragile silence, shaking his leg a moment later when Sid still hadn't released his hold. Manny shook his leg more vigorously. "Come on Sid, let go. It was just a little tremor."

"I think…this is going…to get…worse, _oof_." Sid hit the ground with a thump, climbing to his feet a moment later. "I _asked_ , what if we migrate again? Like old times."

 _Because it's too soon. Because…I'm not ready._ A cloud passed overhead and plunged them into gloomy darkness for a few moments before receding. Somewhere out there, his baby girl was dealing with this too. He kept going back and forth on letting them leave, and this was just another point for the _keeping her their little girl forever_ side.

"Let's just get rid of the last thing we saved and then we can talk about it." Manny glanced back toward the clearing. One inconvenient, unavoidable problem at a time. Besides, he needed to get back and check on everyone. If he left Ellie alone for too long, that saber would probably end up with a bunch of leaves piled over him to keep him warm and any other thing she could think of to make him more comfortable.

"Fine, but we should at least talk about it." Sid nettled.

"Deal." Now wasn't the time to argue. Sid had rallied and his goofy simple-mindedness was back, but they'd been through this before. The sloth could break in some truly odd places, the outward proof of how grief worked its way between everything around it, pushing and pushing until whatever was in its path gave way, and he knew that Sid needed support right now. Support and as much of a peaceful atmosphere as possible.

Cautiously, he reached his trunk out, placing it softly on his best friend's shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

Sid beamed despite himself, and Manny's heart leapt just a little. He was healing. This was good.

000

The saber woke in the early evening, just as the color was beginning to fade from the sky.

He blinked unsteadily, clearly confused by the sunlight surrounding them, and looked around himself at the trees and the fire and the mammoths and possums standing a little way away. Manny and Ellie had both frozen when he'd suddenly begun to move, and now that his eyes were open, they waited, tensely watching to see what he would do. A few feet away, Crash and Eddie had stopped the slap fight they weren't supposed to be having and were practically leaning forward in anticipation.

But the saber just twisted his neck blearily. It was clear he had no idea where he was and was trying to piece that together first. Amazingly, it seemed to be more interesting to him than the two huge mammoths a mere trunkful of yards away. Instead he just continued to take in his surroundings. But no amount of looking back and forth was going to clue him in, and he finally seemed to realize this and gave up after a solid ten seconds had passed.

Then his eyes focused on them, and he sat up just a little. Defensive. He couldn't go much farther, Manny doubted he'd still be laying there if he could stand given the immediate look of surprise on his face. And he certainly didn't relax, especially not when Ellie was suddenly moving from Manny's side toward him. Her slow walk was meant to be as unthreatening as possible, and just by the look on her face, Manny knew what she was about to say. "You're safe. Everything's okay, you just had a really nasty fall."

"What…"

"We found you under the waterfall, back near the rocks. Did you trip sweetie?"

The saber's face shifted into the barest look of disbelief, presumably at being called 'sweetie,' but he nodded and then screwed his eyes shut and took a heavy breath against what must have been a sudden onrush of pain.

"And you hit your head." Ellie went on sympathetically and waited until the saber's eyes were open again and back on her. Mostly. He kept glancing at Manny and the possums. "I'm Ellie. And that's my mate and my brothers."

The saber took the opportunity to glance at Manny and the possums more openly this time. But his gaze soon enough went back to Ellie. "Bodhi."

"It's nice to meet you." Her smile was warm and soothing, and Manny doubted the saber noticed the note of self-righteous vindication hidden beneath. It had been a whole few minutes and nothing bad had happened yet. She knew she'd officially won this argument.

"Where am I?"

"In the northern forest." Manny put in, drawing his unfocused attention. "It's a day's travel to the coast."

The saber started. "I need to get going." But he didn't make a motion to stand. Instead he stared down at his paws like he didn't understand why they weren't immediately underneath him.

"We'll have you ready to go soon." Ellie said quickly. "But right now you need to rest."

Bodhi still hesitated, looking between them as if he could pull wherever it was he needed to go closer.

"You can't travel like this." Ellie nudged. "At least for one more day. Stay here and get some sleep so you can rebuild your strength."

He waited another moment, clearly weighing his options before finally saying, "Okay."

Besides standing at the ready to deflect any unlikely attacks, Manny had been watching the possums out of the corner of his eye. They'd crept closer, following in Ellie's footsteps, and before Manny could say anything were bounding between her legs to get a closer look now that they had a confirmed guest.

She caught them just as they got within a few paces of the saber. "And you two need to leave him alone."

Crash and Eddie grumbled and squirmed a little but otherwise let Ellie deposit them a safe distance away. Safe for the saber anyway. When Manny glanced his way, Bodhi looked slightly amused, if also predictably confused, before turning his gaze on the two mammoths. "Is this your herd's territory?"

"More or less." Ellie glanced at Manny once, "But we're a community, we don't really keep anyone out. We share it."

Bodhi seemed a little underwhelmed by this but was clearly not ready to get bogged down in particulars, "It must be a large area then. I started picking up smells a good half night's travel east. It would take a day to walk it. I can't imagine more than ten mammoths could live here without enforcing some kind of boundary. And there are other herbivores too, aren't there?"

"You ask a lot of questions." Manny stared him down skeptically. A ten-mile radial breakdown of the area had certainly not been what he was expecting. He definitely didn't like it any better.

Bodhi shrugged and once again winced. But he recovered quickly, "I'm second in command of my pack; I'm used to having information."

"What's that like?" One of the twins piped up, practically climbing over his brother in excitement.

"And where's your pack?"

Bodhi probably would have shrugged again if it didn't hurt him so much. "It's busy. And they're far away."

Ellie and he exchanged a glance at that as Eddie asked, "Do you like it?"

"Of course." Bodhi lifted his head a little higher, taking on a brief air of authority. But then he smiled, and it went away. "It's a lot of following behind my packmates and making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to. And I handle most of the tracking and hunting coordination."

"Wow."

"Whoa."

"Sounds like a lot of work." Manny added to the possums' immediate adulation. No wonder he was so calm, he was trained for it. Trained to survive. Get information. Report back. Disappear when he needed to. "Far away" was subjective.

"At least I'm not Jackson." Bodhi said, and before Manny could decide whether or not he wanted to find out who that was, Sid came shuffling back into the clearing.

Everyone's heads turned towards him as he headed for the fire pit, and an anticipatory silence, the kind only Sid never noticed, filled up the spaces between them. Manny waited for it – the moment the sloth realized their guest was awake – but Crash beat him to it.

"Sid! Meet Bodhi."

Sid blinked and then followed the sweep of Crash's paw to where Bodhi was, once again, taking this newest entrance relatively calmly. He gave a small quirk of his mouth toward Sid just as the sloth's eyes narrowed a fraction. There was a moment of silence in which Manny _deeply_ regretted never having the Half Peak discussion with the rest of the herd as Sid straightened up, clearly unsure of how to react beyond frowning.

"He's awake, and he's _awesome_!" Eddie added, twisting out of his twin's grip to scamper closer.

Bodhi _did_ look taken aback by that, appraising the possums a little more closely this time like they'd suddenly risen in his estimation. Or at least possibly warranted closer tabs than he'd probably put on them at first. Not that it mattered. If he tried anything, they'd make sure he was in for the surprise of his life.

Sid seemed to come back to himself once the attention was off of him, and he gave Bodhi one last wary, albeit a little dark, look that the saber didn't see and dumped the sticks into the fire pit. He went to his usual spot and immediately did a near-perfect job of removing himself from the conversation and everyone else's notice.

"Bodhi, do you remember what happened to you?" Ellie asked as Manny turned from his best friend back to the more pressing situation at hand.

Bodhi must not have been expecting the question. For the first time, he hesitated, and Manny could see how hard he was fighting not to let those dark, too-close memories overwhelm him. The fragileness that his wakefulness had been deflecting returned, and he looked desperately, unselfconsciously scared.

"I want to make sure that I'm doing what I need to do to help you feel better." Ellie added gently. Manny wondered if this was what his face looked like when he talked about his first family. It probably was.

"Of course." Bodhi rallied relatively quickly, but not as fast as he had so far. His voice picked up a telltale detached note, and he stared at the ground in front of him as he said, "Like I said, I was traveling through the area, and I…um, came to the river. I figured it was iced over, but I wanted to get across while it was still dark, since I have no business here.

"I figured if I used one of the fallen logs to get down onto the riverbed I could get across. As soon as I found one and started to climb down though, I lost my balance and fell forward onto the ice. I started sliding from there, and I could, could hear something loud coming toward me, but I didn't know what it was. I just couldn't stop sliding and it was, um, very dark.

"Then suddenly the…the ice just disappeared, and I didn't have time to reach for anything. I just fell. And then I hit the water and…sank. I was able to swim back up, some-somehow. I don't really know. I think it stunned me, and I just kind of lost all sense of what was going on. But for some reason I still knew that I had to get out of the water. I found something solid and clawed myself out. And then I think I passed out because the darkness just kind of stops after that. And then I woke up here."

There was an unsure silence as he stared even harder at the ground. The possums had fallen silent and were stuck together like sap, and Manny knew his own expression probably mirrored the horror of falling a waterfall's length through darkness. Even Sid was looking at him empathetically, his soft-heartedness getting the better of his resentment.

"Thank you Bodhi." Ellie said quietly when he didn't go on. He looked up at her words and she gave him a smile. "If you only hit the water that's a good thing. We found you on the ice, so we weren't sure if you'd fallen onto that. You did have a bit of a fever overnight from being in the water, but it's gone now. I'm sure you'll feel even better in the morning, okay?"

He nodded as much as he could in answer, and Manny could see the memories he wasn't telling them. All the little bits in between what he'd described that were coming back to him as he was retelling it. Things he hadn't known that he remembered, feelings he'd had so strongly at the time that they didn't even feel like feelings anymore. Just survival. And Manny knew that this was where the story was going to end for now.

Plus, Bodhi looked exhausted. Just the last few minutes had taken all of the fight, the tentative okayness, out of him. Even if he had decided to sweep off now, there was no way he'd be able to get more than ten paces. He'd collapse in another unconscious heap and they'd simply pick him back up and face him back toward the fire. He was stuck here with them.

Bodhi seemed to realize this a moment later. Ellie was briefly wrapped up in a lecture aimed at her brothers about behaving, and Sid was looking anywhere but at everyone else, and with the attention mostly off of him, Bodhi looked panicked and worried in a much different way than when he'd woken up earlier. Almost in pain. And it was that last, fleeting expression that Manny couldn't resist. The small, small part of him that kept nagging and doubting that this was the best idea fell silent.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Bodhi finally gave up and put his head down on his paws too quickly, eyes swimming with vertigo at the motion. He didn't seem to have the energy to care about how much it must have hurt.

Ellie didn't notice any of this, and once she'd wrested promises of best behavior from the possums, turned and refocused on him. "Get some sleep honey. I'm taking the first watch, so let me know if you need anything."

Bodhi blinked what might have been an answer. But drowsiness kept his eyes unfocused and his head firmly on his paws.

"Sid?" Ellie murmured quietly, and the sloth immediately rose at his name.

"I'm on it." The fire started a few moments later, but Bodhi was already too far into falling asleep to notice.

Sid did glance at him as he went back to his spot, and as he laid down, Manny watched him watch the saber for a few more minutes. His eyes finally closed, and it was obvious the moment that he fell asleep because all the lines in his body relaxed.

When Manny glanced Ellie's way, the possums were also watching the saber. They were still sitting right up against each other, not having bothered to separate during Ellie's speech and subsequent threats. And now they just looked shaken. Like they hadn't been expecting the emotional side of the story. Crash was the first to get up, and he patted Eddie on the arm before going over to scamper up their preferred tree. Eddie rose too, but Ellie was there to wrap her trunk around him and reached up to place him next to his brother.

They smiled sleepily at Ellie as she rubbed their heads like she did every night.

But her smile fled as soon as she turned away from them. The loving, searching, worry was gone too. Chronic exhaustion replaced it, and when their eyes met, she didn't smile at him. Manny was glad. He didn't feel like smiling either.

She laid down halfway between him and the twins' tree to take the first watch, and probably to think about what Bodhi had told them.

Manny closed his eyes, letting her think and plan in privacy. He'd take watch during the quietest part of the night and hope that this feeling, the one that told him helping Bodhi was the right decision no matter what, would hold true. Because at this point, none of them really had a choice.

* * *

So a bit of bad news. Posting is going to be delayed for a little while – as if I'm usually all that reliable anyway – but I am still here and slowly making progress. Some (good) life changes have been messing with my schedule since last chapter, and writing has become a less pressing activity than, say, sleeping. Which I should technically be doing more of.


	15. Chapter 15

Shira was a coward.

She told herself that over and over again padding through the shining snow, just to make sure she knew. Leaving the pack behind for the second day in a row.

 _Coward, coward, coward…_

Their one-sided argument yesterday had been enough to launch her and Diego out of speaking terms, and neither had done anything last night to restore them. And what did she do? Get up even _earlier_ this morning to avoid talking to him?

Yes, absolutely.

 _Coward, coward, coward…_

But he didn't _need_ her. He just thought he did.

When he was stressed – really, truly, stressed – he didn't sleep well. And he'd slept all the way through the night last night. No tossing and turning, no (now rare) nightmares about the various things in his past that there were to have nightmares about. She would know, she was awake for most of it, unable to sleep surrounded by the pack and the silent, lurking boredom that had driven her away in the first place. A deep, desolate boredom that she'd never thought she'd feel again. Certainly not after getting married to him of all sabers.

Sometimes, when they were first together, Diego would wake up and not know where he was. Shira had always been a light sleeper – yet another quality that Gutt had prized – and she'd begun to believe during those long nights under stars that didn't shift and move from endless water a mere iceberg-length below her body, that this was simply the way that her boyfriend slept.

Boyfriend. Love of her life. Mate. The first saber she'd looked at, really _met_ , and wanted to stay somewhere for.

But the truth was, that _wasn't_ the way he normally slept. Waking up in fits and starts wasn't really his style. And Diego _definitely_ had a style. Sarcastic, occasionally leaking into snide, tough, intellectually ruthless, and not-so-secretly incredibly soft-hearted. And apparently aching in ways that even he didn't even really understand from walking a path that he'd thought would lead him one way but had instead veered off into another.

Shira still often struggled to get him. Even now that the nights had calmed down, that he slept well and had worked through the ever-shifting ice of what still bothered him about his past. Well, most of it anyway. And for as much as she loved her mate, more than her own life and safety, her mind was still selfish. She didn't want him to be miserable and lost, but she didn't _not_ want him to be those things either.

The snow was softer out here, drifting down from the wide branches of the firs into tufts and loose powder. It was more peaceful than the smells and phantom noises of life among twenty-five plus sabers and a full herd of mammoths. And a small, patched-together network of other herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.

She hadn't been kidding when she'd said that he was the social one. It was more than true. They had friends here. Friends that had loved him enough to welcome her even when they didn't want to; friends that had helped save her, in the end; friends that had raised their children with them. But sometimes Shira looked around and felt just a little too crowded. A little too surrounded by _too much_.

It had never been the aquatic diet that bothered her, the late nights hanging out with a deer couple that had somehow become their close friends, or walking into the common areas and seeing a mammoth that knew her name and smiled because they were unnaturally happy to see a hangry carnivore stalking toward them after a bad night's sleep. It wasn't about any of that, even though it should have been.

Because a part of Shira knew, deep deep _deep_ down, that she had somehow managed to put herself right back where she'd started. It had all happened so slowly and subtly that she literally woke up on day and realized it. And now that Merle was sleeping from dawn to dusk, unable to stand for more than a few minutes at a time, and generally looked like something had tried to kill him and almost succeeded, she'd finally come full circle.

Her mate had stepped in to do the job he'd spent his whole life working towards, and she had already failed him when he needed her most because she had failed to realize how much it would bother her. Pack leadership had always felt shallow and self-serving rather than necessary and honorable. An argument she could make about Gutt embarrassingly easy in hindsight. She didn't want to be a part of any of it. Even watching Diego take on more than he needed to because he knew it was the right thing to do couldn't completely ease the vague fears that had started creeping up on her in the last few days.

She bristled and almost walked into a tree.

It deserved the glare it got and didn't even have the decency to fall over. A missed opportunity. Kind of like the very obvious footprints she was following. Peaches was not good at sneaking around, and the throbbing part of Shira's ego that screamed like lightning when anything even remotely threatening got within smelling distance was doing that annoying, barely-there ache that usually preceded a very bad move.

She just wanted her new, impromptu niece to be a little better at this. To give her an excuse to not have to go storming back to Diego so soon.

And just when she was thinking that maybe that was the real problem, that she _did_ need to go back and set things right before this could turn into a real fight, that he'd understand if she could pull herself together enough to just explain, the trail ended along a slight break in the trees. A small, frozen-over riverbed was to her left, down in a shallow gully. Thick tree cover surrounded the small, balding patch of forest, and there was only one scent to pick up.

It hadn't changed since she'd found it yesterday. Yesterday when she'd pushed her mate away and slunk off to make good on her word. That whatever those two were up to, she'd know. It had taken the better part of a day to get here, having followed Peaches' trail as it meandered through Brian's territory, and by the time she'd come upon this catastrophe, the short day was setting into night. Her earlier assumptions that her new niece was wandering around simply to get the lay of the land died with the sun at her back as Shira made her way home.

Now she stood and just…looked. The snow had probably fallen into thick piles, wind-tossed and smooth before a large force had come through yesterday and completely reordered the area.

Shira slowly stepped from the trees, scanning the great drifts that had been piled in haphazard, tilted piles. There were flat areas where tusks had skimmed the cleared surface of the snow. Footprints here and there trampled back over each other endlessly. Scents of a mammoth on every single surface around the perimeter of the small clearing. Up trees, under logs, deep into the snow. The wind tasted like the still-unfamiliar scent of her fur.

Shira made a complete sweep of every single slope and tree and flake. Then frowned. A quarter of a lifetime among mammoths and she'd never once seen them act this way. Peaches had stopped here and almost destroyed the place. An entire sleepless night to think about it, and she still hadn't come up with what any of this meant.

And there was nothing here that tipped her off.

She glanced up. There was a faint smell of Peaches up in the branches too. Julian had mentioned that she moved differently than other mammoths, but Shira hadn't really thought about it until she had to stare up into the boughs, some of them half broken under a heavy weight that had somehow been fast enough to release its hold before they snapped entirely, and imagine a mammoth somehow moving through them.

She took a deep breath. This. This is what she needed to be doing to help the pack. Peaches had been half a hunch, the kind that usually yielded something even if it wasn't what she'd first suspected. But this…this could be the time that it really paid off.

000

Bodhi slept until midday.

He looked much better and much less confused waking up this time. And after assuring Ellie that he wasn't hungry and _no he wasn't lying about that, not that she'd be able to do anything about it anyway_ , she began trying to get him to go back to sleep.

But he was, once again, more interested in their herd and the area around it. Crash and Eddie had been gone for an early breakfast, as had Sid, again, and the twins came back just as Bodhi was trying to figure out where, exactly, he was.

"So I can just go straight north," he tried for the tenth time.

"No, there's a small mountain range. You're better off doubling back east for a while." Ellie's endless patience was also starting to wear Manny's temper a little thin.

Bodhi just scowled at her. "I don't have time."

"Why not?" Ellie asked at the same time her brothers did.

"I have a better question." Manny cut in, and Bodhi turned to look at him, expression smoothing out a little. Probably hoping Manny would take his side. "If you're not well enough to travel now, what makes you think that you'll be better when you're trying to walk through a snowstorm?"

It was becoming increasingly obvious that Bodhi was planning to leave sooner rather than later – whether he was well enough or not. And Manny's parenting instincts were starting to kick in uncomfortably well.

"I'll be fine. I know how to survive in a snowstorm."

"Bodhi…"

"There's a difference between being tough and being stupid," Manny said before Ellie could start trying to appeal with warmth and feelings. "You can only be both for so long. And I think we all know which one will eventually win out."

The saber opened that sharp mouth of his to answer, but then paused and shut it again. The petulant look Manny got instead was exactly what he'd been hoping for. He let his eyes crinkle a little in a gloating answering smile.

He was almost shocked into dropping it when Bodhi smirked back in defeat.

"Listen to him Bodhi, he knows what he's talking about." Ellie shot him a teasing look that made the twins snicker and Bodhi bite at a smile.

"To which time are you referring?" Manny asked gruffly, deciding it was better to bait her than outright agree like it was _true_. Which it was.

Ellie just looked at him with her best _not impressed_ expression for a moment before turning back to Bodhi. "See?"

He looked between the two of them before settling back on her. "I'm hurt that you don't think I'm smarter, to be honest."

"She does." The possums chimed in.

"See?" Bodhi raised his eyebrows. As if the twins' opinion held any weight.

Ellie leaned toward him almost threateningly. "What would your pack leader say to you? Would he tell you to get up and go if he knew what had happened? Would he give you the order to keep going?"

There it was.

Bodhi was silent in an instant. And looking a little sheepish. Interesting. He _did_ know he was pushing himself farther than he should, and he'd been planning to go against everyone's better judgement anyway. Even with the knowledge that his own leader wouldn't approve. Manny eyed him speculatively as Ellie added something else about taking care of himself for his own sake and not just for that of others'.

Bodhi looked thoroughly amused at that prospect but didn't argue with her. He seemed to find Ellie the easiest to talk to, with the possums coming in a close second. He addressed Manny respectfully whenever they were speaking, but he seemed most comfortable talking to Ellie. Great. One more voice to take her side in an argument.

"…and you're staying _here_. Got it?"

Bodhi stared her down for a moment once she was done chewing him out, but it was clear that she'd won. Now that he'd been called out on it, he wasn't going to go against his pack leader. Or Ellie's wrath for that matter. Manny suspected the saber was slowly acclimatizing to the flow of power within their herd.

"I'm not taking a nap," he finally snapped.

"Fine." Ellie said quickly, sweeping backwards to settle into her spot. "You'll sleep better tonight anyway. And it won't be the first time we've dealt with a cranky toddler."

 _That_ was about to get a response. He opened his mouth and everything, but the possums, who'd been looking bored throughout Ellie's speech given that it was mostly recycled material from when she yelled at them for not being more careful, cut him off and bounded over to claim his attention for themselves.

"Bodhi, Bodhi, look what we found!" They proceeded to show him a piece of gnarled wood that apparently looked like a saber along with a flower that they then dared him to eat. He passed on the dare but did seem to take an interest in the possums' drawn-out story about discovering the saber-shaped chunk of wood.

Manny found himself breathing a sigh of relief, even if it was mixed with some guilt. He knew Sid wanted Bodhi gone. The sloth was softhearted, and he'd understand, but it was still hurting him.

Manny glanced at their guest. He was grinning as Eddie did a backflip off of his brother's shoulders. The possums' voices were hushed but excited as they talked and acted their way through whatever outlandish story they'd decided would impress Bodhi most. Ellie was dozing a little way away, but her ears twitched at their quiet giggling, and he knew she was keeping tabs on her brothers. Her mouth quirked as one of the twins made an exploding sound.

Well, at least they were happy.

000

Night was slowly beginning to fall. Eventually, the twins' one-sided story time with Bodhi turned into an entire herd discussion about their neighbors and the surrounding area. This time it was less about the area itself and more about the other animals that populated it, and the comfortableness from earlier in the afternoon ran a current underneath their conversation.

Sid was back too. He seemed to be in in an even better mood when he eventually returned, dragging some long sticks behind him. But he still didn't do much more than glance swiftly at Bodhi upon entering their clearing, even though the saber turned toward him in greeting.

Again, Bodhi didn't seem to notice Sid's unsubtle attempt to ignore him and instead glanced from Sid to Manny and then back to Sid. Then his attention went back to the possums and their detailed plan to get Fred back for the comments he was still making about them. Behind them, Ellie was shaking her head at her brothers.

"So what's your pack like?" Crash asked as their story was winding down, switching topics in the blink of an eye.

But Bodhi barely stopped to think before grinning and saying that it was the best; it was home. So far he hadn't said much more than that his pack was far away and he was one of its leaders, but he was more than happy to talk about his packmates and his life. And the twins had no problem coming up with questions for him. He told them about running a pack, that he'd been second in command for a couple of seasons now, and that his pack's territory was quite large and in a beautiful valley. There were eight of them, and they were all quite close, for sabers.

It was a rare glimpse into a reality that Manny's experience had barely touched on. He'd never really thought about the lives of carnivores before Half Peak, and he'd done his best not to think about them after. But now, he couldn't deny that he was interested and just a bit desperate to know. And he knew Sid was. The sloth was sitting up, his body angled toward Bodhi, and he leaned forward at all the same places that the twins did. This was a small, unexpected chance to understand, just a little bit better, what their brief friend's life might have been like.

And it was a subtle reminder of the situation they were in. Bodhi definitely looked better, but the more Manny paid attention, the more he could pick out the fragileness that remained. Bodhi hadn't brought up falling, and even when answering Ellie's questions when he was first awake, he'd skimmed around it. Ellie hadn't pushed it before, but he could tell by her body language now that she was noticing the same thing the longer they talked tonight.

"I _told_ him not to go that way, but he didn't listen. So then I had to…" Sure enough, five minutes later Bodhi stopped dead in his story about his first day as second in command, wincing involuntarily. His smile dropped, and he crooked his neck as if to alleviate a pinch. A moment later it passed, and his eyes cleared. He blinked at them, hesitating. As much as he tried to hide it, he was in pain. And he'd just given himself away.

"Do you have a headache sweetie?" Ellie was on her feet before Bodhi could decide on something to say.

"A little." He answered carefully.

She nodded and held out her trunk just slightly. "May I?"

Bodhi stared at her extended trunk for a heartbeat before saying, "Yes," in a neutral voice. And he didn't do much more than wince as Ellie carefully rubbed the tip of her trunk over the still-visible bump on his head.

"It's smaller than it was at first. But I'm sure it really hurts." She stepped back, giving him space again.

Bodhi looked like he wanted to answer. To say _I'm fine_ , but he didn't. For all that he was good at drawing their attention to other topics and generally acting like he was okay, the truth was, he wasn't.

"Sid, can you get the fire going?" Ellie turned to the sloth, either saving him from having to answer or cutting off any excuses.

Bodhi had been cool in the face of everything their hodgepodge herd had thrown at him so far. But the fire gave him pause.

Despite his concern, Manny stifled a smile when Bodhi's face twisted up at the sight of Sid striking his rocks together over the branches of the ashy circle that was their fire pit. He had been waiting to see when the saber would notice the charred branches and bring it up, and watching Bodhi watch Sid light the fire a few moments later was well worth the wait.

The saber's eyes followed the blaze upwards before trailing back down to its source where the crackling, snapping sticks were being steadily consumed. He blinked into the brightness, stunned into silence.

Sid just nodded to himself, adjusted a few sticks that hadn't yet caught fire, and went to his spot. Bodhi's eyes followed him, and when Sid glanced his way, the two locked eyes in silence. A moment later Bodhi turned his head toward the fire and then back again to Sid, looking impressed.

The sloth stared back awkwardly for a second too long and then looked down and Bodhi, almost unwillingly, turned back to gaze at the flames. They reflected in his swampy green eyes.

He blinked a few more times, there was a long moment of silence, and then his eyes refocused and he looked between them all skeptically. "It's just a headache. I meant what I said earlier. I can't keep hanging around here doing nothing."

Ellie threw up her trunk with an annoyed groan. "You. Are. Ridiculous."

"I know what I have to do."

"You can't possibly think that this is a good idea."

"It doesn't matter if it's a good idea." Bodhi sputtered, starting to wince a little more wildly now, "It has to be done. And it's _my_ job."

"And if you die?"

"From a headache?"

"From your own rampant stupidity!"

"I made it this far didn't I?" He was quick witted, smart. Good at exploiting small points and refitting them to support his own side. And as the conversation began to reheat in the toasty glow of the fire, he was much less surprised by the pack leader argument the second time around and insisted that his leader had given him a specific job to do, something important that he couldn't sit around and wait on. Which left little else than his own sense of wellbeing to argue over.

For as much as Manny had dreaded fighting him physically, verbal fighting was also proving to be tough. There really did seem to be a disconnect between his current injured state and what he was going to run into once he began getting into the unforgiving climate of the far north.

Or maybe he was just young and still thought he was invincible. Which wasn't any better. Manny remembered that feeling all too well.

"If your pack is that way," Manny motioned behind him with his trunk, unwillingly riled up and ready to go all in to try and get this hardheaded _, stupid,_ young _kid_ to _listen._ "Then why do you have to go that way?" A sharp stab with his trunk to the north.

"I have a message to relay, and I need to find out if their weather has been changing like ours."

His words took the air out of the clearing. Everything felt cold, suddenly, and a dense silence fell. The voices, the fire, the wind, the myriad small sounds that were always there…weren't anymore. At least not to his ears.

Across from them, Bodhi returned their stares warily, no doubt immediately picking up on the change in atmosphere.

"What?" He finally asked, and all the sound returned with a _whoosh_.

"Is it bad out there too-" Manny started to ask, just as Ellie cut in with, "Did you see two mammoths while you were traveling?"

He and Ellie exchanged a look, and she took a deep breath, resetting the conversation. "Our daughter just got married. She's traveling with her husband right now. We're worried because they're alone and the weather here has…not been reassuring."

"I passed a mammoth at one point, but I didn't stop. I think they might have seen me, but again, I'm not trying to bother anyone-"

Ellie spun toward Manny before Bodhi could finish. "It was her, it had to be."

"Ellie-"

"Why wasn't Julian with her? Why was she alone?"

"I don't know…" Manny stared into her terrified eyes, feeling it all sink in farther, become realer than he thought it could be when he'd griped to them about their plan originally. He turned to Bodhi. "Are you sure she was alone?"

He frowned back. "I'm not hunting mammoths. I get through every area as quickly as possible, so I'm not looking for anything in particular. If they were more than fifty paces away from each other and I didn't actually see him, then I wouldn't have noticed either way."

But they all knew that wasn't a good enough reassurance. Bodhi's frown deepened into concern as he looked between the five of them. Finally, he asked. "Where were they headed?"

Manny sighed, but they all answered. "Nowhere."

"Nowhere? What do you mean nowhere?" His face scrunched up, "They just went off without deciding on a route?"

"They wanted to roam." Ellie broke down, her powerful shoulders sagging. In the last few minutes, her height had settled, caved into itself, and she looked _small_. Much smaller than she ever had as a possum.

Manny turned back to Bodhi. "When you say that the weather is bad…"

"Snowstorms. And we had a glacier move through out of nowhere. But the storms are getting worse and worse."

"We've had tremors here." Manny said. "And the weather has been…weird."

"The neighboring territory to my pack is having a meeting soon about it. Everyone knows something is going on." Bodhi said quickly, "I'm sure they noticed it too and found a safe place to stop."

Would they though? Manny knew his daughter. He knew how reckless she could be sometimes, and Julian was a follower. He'd trail after her into anything. Those two together…

"Are there safe places that you saw?" Crash asked. "Someplace they could stop?" Next to him, Eddie raised his eyebrows.

"I mean…" Bodhi's reassuring expression wobbled, and he barely stopped to think before frowning. He knew he didn't have an answer that would make them feel better. "I don't know. They could really be anywhere by now, if that's even who I saw…"

Ellie spun away from their conversation to look at Manny. Just him. "We have to go after them."

Finally, somebody was seeing sense. He nodded back. "We'll go."

"How?" Eddie's voice cut in. The twins both had their arms crossed and were standing a few feet from Bodhi, looking dubious. "How are we even going to find them? We have no idea where they went."

"If we leave, we could end up going the opposite direction or something." Crash added.

"We have to try, we don't have a choice-" Ellie started to say.

But Crash cut her off. "And if _we_ get lost?"

"So we should just wait here?" Manny snapped at his brother-in-law.

"Or come up with a better idea." Eddie countered waspishly.

"What _better idea_? There _is_ no-"

"We can't stay here doing nothing you guys." Ellie added.

"They're right." Bodhi cut in calmly. "I'll help you."

"You'll…do what?" They all turned to look at him.

"I can't track them from here," He went on, as if whatever was happening at the moment made any sense. "But I can get you to the last place that they might have been. It'll still be too long ago for me to pick up anything, but at least you'll know where to start."

"Really?" Ellie breathed.

"But…" Sid lifted a claw, just as Crash and Eddie whooped.

"That's a great idea!" The possums high-fived each other in excitement and immediately started listing off all the "fun" things they could do with a saber around.

"We can teach him how to climb trees."

"Yeah, and he'll teach us how to move silently through the trees so we can sneak up on those jerks done by the lake when they least expect it. And then we can…"

"What about going north?" For as much as Manny didn't want to ask, it was better to know now if this was going to fall apart.

"Nate is a capable pack leader. He knows where to go if they need help." Bodhi answered, watching the possums with an amused smile. Then he turned his attention back to Manny and Ellie, giving an encouraging nod at their hesitation. "And this will let me get back to my pack sooner. If your children have moved on by the time we get to where I might have seen them, we can always check with Brian. He's the one organizing the meeting. If he didn't see them, maybe someone else traveling that way did."

"We appreciate this." Ellie whispered, "I know that this was important to you."

"You're welcome." Bodhi looked up at her, a small smile emerging. It felt unnervingly comfortable, and Manny desperately hoped that his eyes would stay on her and not turn to him. He didn't want to smile back. Not yet.

"Sounds good to me." Eddie interjected in a break in their own conversation.

"Yeah, me too." Crash echoed.

They looked quite pleased with themselves, and Manny felt a small amount of dread that their new favorite friend was now going to be tagging along for them to get into trouble with.

No, not tagging along. Leading. Guiding. Tracking… Manny turned his head toward the only member of their herd who hadn't really said anything yet. Everyone else suddenly seemed to remember him there too, and soon they were all looking at him.

"Sid?" Ellie nudged, her voice back to hopeful as the sloth's eyes shifted between them all desperately.

"I…" He stammered, mouth opening and closing a few times. "But… I don't know if…"

"We need to find Peaches and Julian." Ellie reasoned gently.

It was too obvious that he was desperate to come up with a reason to say no. And just as Manny was about to step in and mumble off a grumpy line about how it was late and they needed to go to sleep, Sid gave up. His panic disappeared and a violent scowl replaced it. "Fine." He crossed his arms, deliberately keeping his eyes away from Bodhi, "For Peaches."

"Good. We'll leave tomorrow morning." Manny rumbled before Ellie's taken aback expression could find its way out of her mouth. Next to her, the twins had their eyes narrowed at Sid, and Eddie was whispering feverishly in Crash's ear. When he finished, they nodded at each other, said goodnight to Bodhi, and scampered up their tree.

Bodhi didn't notice, too busy watching Sid until Ellie claimed his attention with a quiet, "Hey, let's talk for a minute."

Manny slowly made his way over to Sid as Ellie began saying something to Bodhi about still taking it easy at first, that he wasn't healed just yet. _Don't give me that look Bodhi, I know you like to pretend like pain is a foreign concept to you, but if you're hurting somewhere else you need to tell me, I mean it…_

"I'm sorry." Manny whispered to Sid's curled up body.

He lifted his head slightly from the nest he'd made of his arms, like he was about to say something, but then changed his mind and rolled onto his side so that his back was more or less to the clearing. If it had been just the two of them, alone, Manny would have reached out – placed a trunk on his shoulder and tried to cajole him into talking.

But it wasn't the two of them alone anymore. In the background, the soft sounds of the possums getting comfortable and occasionally slapping each other around to adjust for sleeping space ran underneath Ellie's quiet questions. She must have gotten whatever information she'd wanted out of Bodhi, because they'd moved on to talking about Peaches.

His entire world had completely shifted when his daughter was born, and before that when he'd met Ellie and her brothers, and before that when he'd met Sid. The sloth didn't singlehandedly tip the earth the way he used to, but Manny still didn't like the new incremental shift he'd just caused. It made everything feel just off-balance enough to be familiar and uncomfortable at the same time.

Looking at the sloth's small form at his feet, Manny couldn't bring himself to wish that it was just the two of them anymore. He'd always had an underlying selfish streak he supposed. One that Sid rarely gave in to. He really had followed Manny everywhere, always ready to go along for the ride, and they both knew that he was about to do it again.

And Manny didn't know how to say that he was so, so grateful. Not here, surrounded by their family, and probably not even if they were alone. Maybe that was really where he was selfish. Sid rarely asked for more than a ride, and certainly never a break from the strange situations they perpetually found themselves in, but Manny had known since the day they'd met that his accidental best friend was desperately looking for a _good job_ , maybe even a _thank you_. And he'd known that Sid would probably have to keep looking for those things from someone other than him.

Ellie wanted them to talk more. Maybe she was right.

"I'm here." Manny finally said when he realized he didn't have anything else to offer. Then he turned and made his way over to where Ellie and Bodhi were still whispering. The possums had somehow already fallen asleep in the last minute and were snoring in the background.

He stopped when he was shoulder to shoulder with his wife.

"We'll leave in the morning." Ellie said and looked down fondly at Bodhi, "Wake me up if your headache gets too bad."

"Sure." He smirked and glanced at Manny as Ellie took his trunk in hers and navigated them both to their usual spot.

"She means it." Manny fixed him with a frown as Bodhi laid his head down on his paws.

This time, his grin was real. "I know."

* * *

You'll notice that all of the chapter titles have disappeared. I'm bad at naming chapters, but I figured I'd give it a go anyway. My efforts haven't really panned out as far as I'm concerned, so they've been replaced with the much more boring, but probably just as descriptive, "Chapter 1," etc.

Thanks for waiting, I know this was a long break. I'm still adjusting to a new schedule and some (still good) life changes, but I'm trying to get back into a better writing routine now that everything is settling down. I still think about this story a lot. And I'm grateful that people out there are reading and thinking about it too.

Until next time!


	16. Chapter 16

It was early when they rose to leave.

Ellie was already up and looking east at the edge of their clearing when Manny stopped at her side. The sun wasn't up yet, not even a sliver on the far horizon.

Ellie took a deep breath in through her trunk. "You were right okay? This was a bad idea."

She'd fought him hard to let the kids go. Without her, they would still be here, safe, and probably complaining. He hadn't imagined this, though. And he didn't want credit for being right.

Before he could figure out a way to say that, Ellie kept going. "They could be anywhere. And, and, this weather… And if Bodhi found them, _who else_ has found them?"

"They're okay, and we'll catch up."

Silence followed his words, and Manny didn't bother to fumble for anything else. Ellie was the one who was good at this, not him. And he was tired. Last night had been mostly sleepless, and he had a feeling it had been for her too.

"I'm worried about Bodhi too," Ellie finally said, which was no surprise. Manny had been more or less waiting for her to switch the topic to him. She turned enough so that she could side-eye him. "He doesn't tell me when he's in pain, and now that he's got a new thing to focus on…"

"I'm not above just picking him up, you know that."

"I'm not either, but we can't push him too hard right now. And I'm afraid that with all the uncertainty and stress I'm going to lose sight of that."

"Sabers are…tough."

"It's what makes them stupid," Ellie grumbled with a shake of her head.

"Yeah, it does," Manny murmured back. For as much as this impromptu trip had not been anywhere in his range of imagination when this all started, it felt even stranger now that they were about to leave. "I'll get everyone up. The sooner we leave, the better."

Ellie just nodded, turning back to stare into the far distance as Manny made his way over to the possums' tree.

It took about ten seconds for him to realize that there was no way the twins were going to wake up anytime soon, so Manny gave up and gathered them in his trunk and deposited them in the space between his shoulder blades. They'd eventually move over to ride with Ellie, but for now their snores resumed as they got comfortable in the thick scruff of fur around his shoulders.

Sid was still sleeping, but Manny knew he couldn't get the sloth on his back without waking him up. He nudged Sid's shoulder a couple of times with his trunk instead. "It's time to migrate again. Rise and shine."

He didn't get an answer, but Manny left it at that. They both knew Sid wasn't sleeping anymore.

Bodhi's spot was currently empty. He'd whispered about needing to go get a drink just as Manny was waking up from an unrestful period of dozing. The saber silently padded into the tree line without asking where the water sources were, and Manny hadn't been awake enough to adequately contemplate warning him that the closest place was one that he probably wouldn't want to ever be near again.

He could probably smell it anyway.

That was a while ago, and he'd probably be back soon. The back of Manny's mind also earnestly hoped that Bodhi hadn't decided to do any _other_ things as he glanced over to where Ellie was idly eating a few leaves off one of the trees closest to her, munching discontentedly.

He glanced at the fire pit instead of letting that thought continue. "I'm going to get some water to put on the logs. I want to make sure the fire is completely out before we leave."

"Sounds good." She reached up and grabbed the twins from his back, holding them by their tails with a frown. "I'll have everyone ready to go."

He nodded and made his way out of their clearing and toward the eerie silence of the waterfall. It was almost completely frozen now, the water bulging in a huge, still wave from the top down to the jagged bottom.

Bodhi was lucky he hadn't fallen on the front side. Manny shivered.

He had to work to break the ice near the shore, and his breaths puffed in the frigid air. Finally, after about five hard stomps, it splintered, and he was able to use his tusks to push away enough ice chunks to reach the water. It was ice cold and he nearly coughed when it hit his throat.

He was not looking forward to carrying this back to camp.

Snow crunching to his left made him turn his head, and Bodhi nodded at him as he made his way over. "Good morning, Manfred."

"Cold morning."

"Yeah," Bodhi breathed out, a long puff of frosty white air trailing the end of the word.

"You found some water then?"

Bodhi's body was angled away from the waterfall so that he had as much of his back to it as possible. Manny didn't blame him. "I did. I was hoping you guys would be up by the time I got back. We're better off to get head starts while we still can."

Manny nodded, turning back to the water and pulling up as much as he could into his trunk. He jerked his head back toward camp, and Bodhi moved to walk next to him. His gait was steady, and he looked all around better than he had the night before. But injuries didn't just go away like that. The more he healed, the easier the pain was to tolerate, the more he could make sure they didn't know about it.

Bodhi didn't attempt to make conversation during the short walk back to camp, and he mostly stayed out of the way once they got back. Ellie was just telling her brothers to go and get Sid from wherever he'd wandered off to as Manny thoroughly soaked the logs and ashes of the fire until the whole thing looked like a blackened, muddy mess. He coughed from the cold, satisfied.

"It should be easy to get to the outer edges of the area. I can't guarantee the weather after that," Bodhi said as Manny made one last sweep of their temporary home.

"Good." Ellie nodded at both of them just as the sound of shouting reached them from the patch of trees the possums had disappeared into. Ellie face-trunked and lumbered after her brothers with a, "They are so dead," muttered to the general vicinity.

Manny just rolled his eyes and glanced at the lightening line of horizon. The slight pale yellow was flattened, a single layer of sky underneath an overwhelming arch of blue-purple haze. But it wouldn't be long until it burned its way upward. He wasn't quite sure how they'd managed to already get a late start, but this hadn't been the half-formed plan he'd tried to bait sleep with last night.

Manny glanced toward Bodhi. He was also staring off into space, probably thinking, estimating distances. Manny looked back out toward the horizon. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, waiting to set out isn't a good idea."

"About helping us." He snuck a glance, but Bodhi's gaze was still on the sky.

"Of course. I owe you."

Manny scoffed. "You don't owe us anything."

"You helped me when you didn't have to. I would have probably died there if you hadn't. I owe you, Manfred."

"Manny." He corrected. He couldn't remember the last time someone had used his full name. "You can call me Manny."

Bodhi was silent for a long moment, and when Manny glanced at him, the saber was staring back with an uncertain expression. Until their eyes met. And then Bodhi nodded slightly. "Alright. Manny."

Shouting started up again and broke the moment. A few seconds later, Ellie stepped from the trees with the possums and Sid in tow. She jerked her head east. "Are we ready to go?"

000

This wasn't working. For some reason Peaches had reasoned that finding a mysterious hole somewhere in Merle's territory would be simple. She'd just stumble upon it one day. The pack members didn't know about it because they were too used to the area. Or they weren't looking hard enough. Or they just didn't want to get involved with a manic, half-a-snack, dinosaur whisperer (as Shira called him).

Turns out none of that was true.

Merle's territory was a lot smaller than it looked, and she'd made a complete sweep in three and a half days. That was it. All of it. And now she didn't know what to do.

She also wasn't sure what to tell Jackson. He'd given specific but vague directions to his packmates to keep an eye not only on anything out of the ordinary but also to try and notice anything in plain sight that they might be missing.

As far as she knew, Diego had no idea about that particular order. She wasn't sure what would happen if someone let the information slip. It was vague enough that he might not think twice about it, but if he went digging…there was a pretty short trail. And it all led back to her.

Well, her _and_ Jackson. And Peaches knew that he was precariously walking the line between loyalty and insurrection. He was already having to serve a pack leader that wasn't his own and trying to balance the pack's normal routines with all of Diego's changes. And now he was going against Diego's wishes and following her off into an unsanctioned unknown. She knew he had more thoughts about Buck than he was willing to admit. She also knew that whatever happened under Diego's leadership would get back to Merle eventually.

Jackson was doing something he wasn't supposed to, and she knew he wasn't going to be happy about this newest, well, lack of development.

If they couldn't find Buck, they couldn't test their theory. He was the only one who could prove that dinosaurs were real. And that Merle had been the victim of an extremely dangerous possibility. Without him, this was all for nothing.

"Hey Peaches!"

"What's up, Peaches?"

Peaches waved at the animals that passed her, smiling at their greetings as she headed toward the main clearing.

At least this was all going well. Peaches had never had so many friends in her life, and she knew that Julian was basking in the glow of the attention of the other residents. He loved being the life of the party, and so far, everyone had been quick to embrace them. In the end, answers about Half Peak or not, everyone seemed to want the two of them around.

It was nice. It felt like they fit here.

But they'd fit a lot better if they could get this figured out. Jackson noticed her as soon as she stepped into the clearing, momentarily pausing his conversation with Cam to glance at her. A moment later, he was turning back to his third in command and saying something that made the other saber nod and then take off in the opposite direction.

Peaches resisted the urge to slump her shoulders as she made her way over to him.

"That look can't be good." He half smiled as she stopped in front of him.

"I'm so sorry Jackson, I haven't found anything."

"Don't worry about it, you've got bigger things going on right now." At her confused look, Jackson snorted. "Right, you haven't been around. Celeste, one of Isaiah's pack members, said that she picked up the triplets' scents on the far edge of the territory. They should be home by early tomorrow."

"Great," she huffed, her momentary relief that Jackson wasn't upset overtaken by dread she wished would just go away. It wasn't her family, it wasn't her say.

"It'll be okay," Jackson added quickly. They'd had this conversation a couple of times now, tentatively on Peaches' part, and Jackson was convinced that her and Julian would get along just fine with Shira and Diego's kids. But she still wasn't sure, and he knew it. "You should come talk to Diego tonight. They'll head out early tomorrow morning to meet them, and they'll probably want you guys to come."

"Fine," Peaches grumbled, not in the mood to try and argue with him again. Apparently their kids did this occasionally, so their returns weren't necessarily a big deal. So there was no reason for her and Julian not to go, which was too bad.

"That way it'll be over with, and you can stop worrying about it," Jackson added. "And as far as looking these past few days, I knew you wouldn't find anything. Wherever Buck comes and goes from, it's not around here. Besides, whatever the attacker was…it ran off east. I'm not saying you're not on to something, but we may need to wait until Buck decides to come back before we do anything else."

"Or we could try convincing Diego again."

"No." Jackson immediately shook his head. She rolled her eyes but didn't push further. He'd flat out refused to consider revisiting the issue with Diego, and while Peaches wasn't too keen on that option either, they were running out of alternatives.

"Yeah fine." Maybe if they could just get someone else on their side. Like Isaiah…

"I went to see Merle this morning."

"Really?" Peaches blinked, pulled out of an internal debate with herself over whether or not Isaiah would agree to help them solely to make Diego angry and if that move was too petty for further consideration. "How…how is he?"

Jackson hesitated, closing his eyes and sighing. It was so emotionally open and vulnerable that Peaches winced. He reopened his eyes. "I know that Shira has been dropping in to keep an eye on him and she said that he sleeps a lot… But I _know_ my pack leader. He doesn't look good."

"Are you…worried?"

"He's not going to die from his injuries, but he isn't recovering as fast as everyone thought he would. I mean, he's getting older, but he's not _old_. That's the worst part of it. Whatever got him just seemed to…to take away a piece of him. Something feels off to me, but I don't know what it is. I just…I don't know."

"Jackson." Peaches didn't know what to say. Except to offer help the way Mom always did when she knew nothing she had to say would make it better.

"I think I'm going to be taking over faster than I thought I would."

"You're going to be amazing at it," Peaches said quietly. "And Julian and I will help you."

He smiled sadly. "That's not really the way it works."

"I don't care."

His smile brightened a little more this time, but the sadness didn't leave. "Maybe we should focus on finding Buck first."

He wanted her to drop it. She would. For now. "How long does he usually disappear for?"

"A few days. A few weeks. Sometimes months go by," Jackson said, but hurriedly added, "I heard from Leia and some of the others that saw him on the day it happened that he said he was going to do some checking."

"That's right, he did. Diego and I had been talking, and we were passing through here when he said it." It had only been about a week. They'd blended into the area so well, it was a little hard to believe.

"He probably left right after. Buck is a little all over the place, but he's also efficient. If his mind works half as fast as his body, we should be seeing him again pretty soon."

Peaches nodded, pausing for a moment to think. Jackson looked away, clearly getting pulled back into his own thoughts, probably about Merle. Finally, just as his frown had thoroughly pulled the rest of his expression down, she said, "I know you don't like this, so just tell your packmates to stop looking. I'll keep searching on my own."

"Peaches," Jackson moaned, focusing back on her, "Come on, that's not fair."

"It _is_ fair, I'm not useful at all otherwise."

"You're not here to be useful Peaches, you're here because…Shira!" Jackson jerked his head to the side suddenly, the rest of his sentence cut off with the motion. He also took a few steps away from her, putting an uncharacteristic distance between them.

Shira had come out of nowhere and was looking between them coolly. "I'm sorry if I interrupted something?"

"No, of course not." A respectful, detached expression swiftly replaced Jackson's surprise, and Peaches wished she was so good at pretending like she wasn't up to anything that quickly. "Is everything okay?"

"Of course." But Shira was looking at Peaches. When she caught her eye, the saber's face twitched into what might have been a fleeting smile. She jerked her head toward the trees. "I think we should talk."

000

It was a lot farther to the border of their area than any of them had realized. The possums had walked for a while when they first set out, weaving in between all of their legs and scouting ahead with Bodhi close behind. But eventually they found their way up to Ellie's shoulders when it became apparent that it would be a while longer. Every once in a while they'd get back down to head up the group, but as the morning wore on that was getting less frequent too.

Manny was keeping an eye on Sid but otherwise let him have his space. They'd been walking for a few hours now and he hadn't asked for a ride even once. That definitely wasn't good. Not wanting to set a precedent for the rest of their journey, Manny hadn't offered when they set out. Now, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Sid trailed half a mammoth's length behind, slouching along and letting the wandering topics of conversation wash over him. He was simultaneously paying too much attention and none at all.

"So, did you scare anyone this morning?" Ellie asked as they walked, glancing at Bodhi with a teasing expression. On her shoulders, the possums leaned forward.

They'd been talking more about their neighbors and how it was probably a good thing that Bodhi was getting out of the area before they realized that their herd had taken in the strangest animal yet. None of them had really thought about it at the time, there'd been too many other concerns, but now it seemed obvious that the animals around them probably wouldn't have taken kindly to his presence.

Bodhi laughed once. "No, there wasn't anyone around. I can't believe how late everyone sleeps in around here."

"There's no reason to be up that early," Manny reasoned through his relief that his earlier fears had been unfounded.

"So?" Bodhi shot back, but there was a smile in his voice.

"That's what _we've_ been telling them," Eddie said. As if those two didn't sleep in later than the rest of them some days.

"And what do you do when you get up that early?" Ellie asked, ignoring her brothers.

"Well…hunt," Bodhi answered a little awkwardly before pulling himself back together. "And there are patrols and scouting to do. We need to defend our territory. There's a lot to do in a day. I'm always busy."

That seemed unnecessary to Manny. Most of the migrating was over for the season. They'd never once had anyone, other than Bodhi of course, encroach on their area out here. And who would be dumb enough to wander into a saber pack's territory? From what he'd told them, his territory was pretty quiet. "Sounds exhausting."

"Exhausting? That sounds amazing." Crash scampered over to cling to the edge of Ellie's shoulder, as close to Bodhi as he could get without actually getting down.

"You're not a carnivore, why are you so interested in this?" Manny asked his brother-in-law. Both possums ignored him.

"Are you going to be pack leader someday?"

"I hope so." Bodhi glanced back at the twins. "But Isaiah's fairly young, he won't be giving it up any time soon. And I still have a lot to learn."

"I thought you've been doing this for a few seasons. And why would you want to if you're already so busy?"

"There's always something to do no matter what position you're in. Haven't you ever been in a regular herd?"

"Well…yes." Manny blinked a few times, aware that his family's eyes were all suddenly on him. "I was in one a long time ago, but then I left."

"Were you in a leadership position?" Bodhi asked casually, completely oblivious to the weird static in the air and the slightly laughable implication that anyone just up and _left their herd_ like it was nothing, "You seem like the type."

"Um, no. I wasn't leading anyone."

"Manny just wandered around a lot and yelled at everyone to get out of his way," Crash added.

"He meant when I was still in my herd."

Eddie waved him off. "Sure, sure. You were probably the same then too."

"Did you not like it? I can't tell you how many animals have moved to the area because they needed a change of pace."

"I liked it just fine." Manny paused, glancing around at all of them. Even Sid had raised his head and was watching the conversation unfold with an understanding look on his face. "But this is better, no question."

"I'm glad you found your place." Bodhi took his answer easily and turned his head to face down the trail again. He seemed to catch a new scent and sped up a few paces to follow it, back to leading once more.

Once Bodhi was sufficiently distracted, Ellie took Manny's trunk in hers with a quiet smile. She didn't say anything, just walked a little closer and let the silence between them stretch. Going into the drawn-out story of his first family and his reckless, destructive impulse to leave what was left of those he loved was not good traveling conversation. And apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so, because the twins almost immediately chose a new topic and once again found their way to the ground to walk up next to Bodhi.

"Say what you will about the kids, but _this_ was a good idea," Ellie said eventually, nudging his shoulder with hers as they walked. Bodhi, Crash, and Eddie were easily ten paces ahead of them, the possums once again doing most of the talking.

"Walking off into nowhere or nursing one of our natural predators back to health?"

"More like restraining him from continuing his own ridiculous, reckless behavior, but yes." Ellie nodded to the three of them up there. Then she turned her head to look back. "You doing okay sweetie? Do you want a ride?"

"Don't ask him that," Manny grumbled as the two of them slowed down and Sid put on just enough extra speed to catch up to them.

"I'm fine," he mumbled, not taking his eyes off the group in front of them. "I don't want a ride."

"Then what's bothering you?" Ellie asked in her best mothering voice, complete with the quick turnaround that was more of a threat than a reassurance, "Because I know that there's something about this that you don't like. Is it because you think Bodhi's not being truthful about where he's leading us?"

Manny had, admittedly, thought of that. He wasn't surprised that it had crossed Ellie's mind, even for as much as she liked him. But this situation was different from last time. It was more like it was happening in reverse, and he had a hard time believing that Bodhi had been able to think quickly enough to fabricate a story about passing a lone mammoth for as fast as he'd answered when they asked if he'd seen anything.

Despite his penchant for lying about his physical condition, he was sincere in a way that Diego hadn't been. At least, not most of the time during their journey to Glacier Pass.

Manny sometimes wondered, if he hadn't been so busy hating the inconvenience of it all and had actually bothered to pay attention, if he would have figured out what was going on _before_ they got to the footholds of Half Peak's maze of cliffs. Maybe it would have all been different. Which still begged the question why some random human baby was the target of a saber pack. If him and Sid been the only things standing between life and death for the child, then something beyond an elaborate hunting strategy must have been going on.

"No. He's not lying. I can tell," Sid answered quickly. _Right_. Like Sid was good at social cues. At Manny's skeptical look over Ellie's shoulder, he made a face. "But I don't think that he's right for us."

"Right for us?" Ellie repeated, confused.

"Yeah, you know, for our herd."

"He's not staying," Manny added quickly before Sid could get too far with that thought. "Sabers live in packs, and he wants to get back to his."

"Duh." Ellie looked between them like she wasn't quite sure why this was even a discussion. Then she shook her head and walked a little faster to go up and see what her brothers were getting into.

Manny shot Sid an annoyed warning look behind her back and pretended not to notice, or be relieved, when the sloth's shoulders relaxed. They continued side by side with Ellie a few paces ahead, yelling at Eddie to _stop messing around up there, we need to keep going!_ until suddenly a thick front of trees came into view.

The patchy tree cover that had characterized most of their morning travel fell away to scrub for about twenty yards only to be completely overtaken by huge, old evergreens.

They all stopped except for Bodhi. Oblivious, he went a few paces farther before glancing back and hesitating at their pause. "What's wrong?"

Ellie spoke first. "Is this it? Are we at the boundary?"

"You've never been any farther inland than this?

She shook her head.

Bodhi looked from them back to the trees. "Yeah, this is the boundary. It'll be a few more weeks from here."

" _Weeks_?" They all said at the same time.

"I told you that I moved fast. It still took time though, and with all of us, I estimate that we'll get there in two weeks at the earliest."

"This was such a bad idea," Ellie whined, pushing her trunk into her forehead in exasperation. "We never should have let them go."

"We'll find them," Manny repeated.

"They've got to be somewhere," Sid offered, his usual enthusiasm bubbling to the surface. "How hard can it be?"

"You know where to start," Bodhi added, looking between them. "You have a much better chance of finding them this way."

Sid crossed his arms at being agreed with but didn't show any further annoyance, and Bodhi was already looking toward the tree line. The forest was huge from the outside, sprawling, and already Manny felt a small twinge of fear. It was all a mystery from here, and the only thing they had to go on was Bodhi's limited, fly-by-night knowledge and general tracking skills.

Still, when Bodhi took their silence as the hint to go on and started walking again, picking out the barest of breaks in the trees to enter through, Manny knew that he wouldn't have turned back even if they didn't have anyone to guide them. They had to find the kids. There weren't any other options.

The herd waited a moment longer, glancing at each other, before following after him.

000

"How are you getting along here?" Shira started, but not until they'd reached a small break in the trees a hundred or so paces from the main clearing. Peaches had searched here too. Of course it had yielded nothing. Just like everywhere else.

"Fine. We're fine." Peaches answered quickly, trying to get a grip on what Shira could possibly want and trying not to let her disappointment in herself surface.

"Any problems so far?" Shira glanced back once toward the main clearing.

Peaches shook her head, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. "Nope."

"Good." Shira's eyes betrayed just enough to show that she didn't believe her. Just enough so that Peaches would _know_ that. She had never been a good liar, and this was definitely not a good time for anyone to start asking questions. Especially not someone who had clearly been on both sides of conversations like this and knew what to do to make it go her way.

"Good," Peaches repeated, trying to keep her voice on the thin line between impatient and innocent. Just enough so _Shira_ would know she wasn't going to be cowed like this without a fight.

"I know that Diego hasn't had as much time for you guys as he'd like, but it seems like you're getting along fine with everyone," Shira continued as if Peaches' attitude shift didn't faze her, as if she _liked_ it. "Although, I haven't seen Julian around yet today."

That was because Shira was right and Julian had quickly made friends with just about everyone in the area. He was currently on his way back from a morning scouting trip with a couple of the sabers from Merle's pack. She'd devoted so much of her time to searching for Buck that she hadn't spent as much time hanging out with everyone as he had.

Now, she just shrugged, "He's busy…" Shira's eyebrow quirked once, and Peaches instinctively felt the need to add "…being social."

Which seemed to only make Shira even more suspicious. Her eyebrow lowered, but her eyes picked up a smug glint. As if Peaches had told her something she wanted to know.

Is this what it felt like to be led into a trap? Following along despite a growing, monstrous feeling of dread? Peaches knew she was missing something, but every instinct in her was whispering that it was already too late, she'd already walked right into wherever this was going.

It didn't stop her from desperately wanting to find her way out of it. "Anyway, that's it. Julian's fine. We're both _fine_. So you don't need to worry or anything."

"I see." Shira nodded, and Peaches could sense before she said it that this, somehow, was the crux of the conversation. "Everything's fine and that's why you're wandering around destroying my home?"

"I'm…what?"

"Everywhere I go in Merle and Brian's territory it smells like you, and it's all a mess. Are you sure that you're _both_ fine?"

"Oh well…I'm…I'm not…" This was bad. This was so, so, _so_ bad. Peaches knew she needed to say _something_ , but she didn't know _how_. Why wasn't her brain working any _faster_? "I'm just…looking around."

"Looking around." Shira repeated without inflection.

"Yes." Peaches snapped, trying to pull herself together as unapologetically as she could. "I'm sorry if I bothered anyone."

"Most of the territory is empty. Merle's pack patrols it, but that's about it. I doubt you ran into anyone while you were out there."

"I didn't." Where was Shira going with this? Did she know? Was she just playing around to see how much she could get out of her before telling Peaches to stop looking for Buck? But if that was the case, it didn't make sense for her to waste time baiting Peaches into admitting it. Maybe Shira guessed, or knew _something_ was up, and was hoping she could figure it out through context. Context that she was still searching for.

Peaches was so sick of being asked what she was doing and then told to give it up. And even worse, Shira hadn't asked. She'd basically demanded. That was _not_ okay with her. "Is there a problem then?"

"No." Shira shook her head, but her expression shifted ever so slightly back to coolness, "Unless you have one."

"There's no problem," Peaches growled.

She just nodded. "Good. I'm glad you're having fun."

"I am." She answered quickly, hearing her own words in her ears but not completely sure that she liked their sound. But she was too angry to stop. "Julian and I like it here, and we like where we're staying. A _lot_. And it's great. We're having fun, and I don't, I don't know what you're talking about." Peaches took a few steps back. "I have to go; we have a lunch date. I don't want to keep him waiting."

"Of course, I won't disturb your plans." Shira stayed where she was, looking tranquil, "We'll be by early tomorrow morning to go and meet the kids if you'd like to come."

"Fine. See you then." Peaches turned and stomped away, feeling like every too-heavy step was just more proof that she'd somehow lost this fight anyway. She resisted the urge to look back, feeling a hardened thing in the back of her mind ache. If Shira thought she could scare her into stopping her search, she was dead wrong.

* * *

I noticed a time inconsistency while procrastinating and reading back through Chapter 14, so that's been fixed. The scene between Shira and Diego at the start of the chapter has been shifted forward a day to keep their timeline in sync with the herd's.

Thanks for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

Ughhhhh. I'm sorry. I actually wrote the bulk of this chapter the day after I posted the last one, but with the holidays, my schedule in general, and writer's block, the editing and proofreading got pushed back.

Also, this probably doesn't warrant a disclaimer, but I would like to mention that, not only do I not own _Ice Age_ , I also don't own _The Big Bang Theory_. (More on that at the end.)

Happy Holidays guys!

* * *

So Peaches was lying. Definitely not well, but Shira could respect the effort.

Besides, she'd more or less gotten the information she wanted. The two of them didn't seem to be going around attempting to locate a different place to stay, so her first theory was ruled out.

She glanced ahead to where the two mammoths were walking next to each other, sometimes whispering but mostly silent. Her and Diego had stopped to get them just after sunrise, and Shira was surprised they'd both been up and waiting for them. Neither had said much. Julian asked if they were excited their children were coming home, but that was about it.

She hadn't talked to Diego about any of this yet. But he seemed to know that neither of the mammoths were feeling particularly upbeat and took Shira's lead by letting them have their space as the four of them made their way to the edge of Merle and Brian's territory.

And Shira told herself she didn't feel bad. Because the last thing she wanted was to scare the two of them off. And Diego had been jumpy since the moment they got here. He would drive himself crazy trying to run the pack and deal with them at the same time. And Shira wanted to know more about why Peaches was being so secretive in the first place. She'd wondered last night – again when she couldn't sleep, half in anticipation that they were less than twelve hours from seeing their children and half, again, because of the pack – if confronting Peaches about her destructive trek throughout all of Merle's territory had been the right move at the time.

It might have served her better to let Peaches walk away and continue her strange behavior a little longer. But for as much as she wanted answers, Shira also wanted Peaches and Julian to feel safe here. She wanted them to like being here and know that they could come to her and Diego with anything they needed. Confronting her outright at this point in the game failed spectacularly, but Shira mostly didn't regret it. They were trying to build a relationship, and Shira wanted trust more than answers. It was a thin margin, but still.

"Hey." Diego's quiet voice pulled her back to the sparkling woods and away from her nighttime thoughts. "I'm sorry. I know that this pack thing is hard for you. I should have tried to talk to you about it sooner."

"You're not the one who should be sorry," Shira muttered, ears going back in misery. She'd meant to have this conversation with him last night, but they'd both been exhausted and seemed to mutually understand that it wasn't the time. Now she glanced at her mate. "You're doing a really good job. And I'm sorry that I can't- I'm _not_ being more supportive."

"Can't," he corrected and gave her an encouraging nod when she snuck a glance his way. He hesitated for a second, looked embarrassed, and finally said, "I didn't think I wanted those two to stay, and I probably would have pushed for them to keep going. It would have been a huge mistake, and you stepped in because you knew that. You don't like pack life, and someone needed to take over because you just…couldn't. My point is, we're a team."

"We are," she agreed quietly. _Because we have each other's backs_ , he'd told her when she'd asked why in the world he wanted to live in a place like this. It was so, so different than what the rest of her life had been like up to that point, and it had scared her how much she liked it and _craved_ it. She knew in the back of her mind that she had some commitment and relationship issues. But she also knew that they stemmed from growing up in – and living through – a world that didn't know how to reciprocate. And she knew that Diego knew and felt that all too well.

"You really think those two are up to something?" Diego's voice lowered to an impossibly quiet volume, and Shira couldn't keep the smirk off her face as she glanced up to the two mammoths. Their trunks were intertwined, and Julian, at least, seemed to be more awake than when they'd set out.

" _Oh_ yeah."

"Great." He griped, narrowing his eyes at their backs. Then glanced at her, "You said you've got this under control?"

"Sure," she quipped, hesitated, and added, "For the most part."

"Good." He frowned, already trusting her. He was always trusting her even when she herself didn't. "I don't have the energy right now."

Shira didn't say anything more. She could tell her mate all day long that he was doing a good job and that the pack was lucky to have him, but he'd just fight her on it. Instead, she nudged his shoulder with hers and walked a little faster. Diego grinned and did the same, catching up to and passing Peaches and Julian.

"Are we getting close?" Julian asked as the two of them took the lead.

"I think so." Diego took a big, deep breath in and swiveled his ears a fraction to the southeast. Shira knew how to track just fine, but Diego was still the better of the two of them at it. She let him adjust their course and glanced back to give the kids an excited smile.

Julian grinned back, and Peaches just nodded to her, a small smile on her face.

Shira let her smile warm a little and then turned back around to let her new niece have her space. It had definitely been the right decision not to drag yesterday's conversation out. She hadn't realized how on edge Peaches was. Maybe she'd even come down _too_ hard on her.

"There! There!" A voice echoed through the trees, and two seconds later the kids appeared from the trunks a few yards in front of them, skidding to a controlled stop. All three of them grinned in unison.

000

The condensation had seeped into his fur so much that it made his coat feel double its usual weight. It pulled him down, made him feel hot and uncomfortable and overall fueled the persistent annoyance that had followed him a week ago from the surface world.

"Blimey." Buck muttered to himself as he stumbled on the uneven ground and had to pull his foot loose from a sticky puddle of mud. He shook it to get the excess off, right paw clutching his knife harder as he slunk farther in among the rocks.

Those dino birds were up to something. He could feel it with the same surety that pushed him to make all of his decisions. Becoming a dinosaur wrangler. Risking his life for the thrill of interrupting the natural cycle of predators and prey. Staying here…

Buck always knew what he was doing, and that trust in himself had led him here, to a dank series of stinking, muddy watering holes beneath an outcropping a good few miles from his usual haunts.

He hadn't spent much time down in this area. He'd learned early on that there were a lot of little meat eaters around here that thought he'd fit down their throats quite nicely. Sure, he'd spent most of his life here riding around on an animal about a million times his size for fun, but even he knew the sheer number of hungry carnivores in this area was too much for him to take on alone.

But he had a reason to be down here now, and he wasn't going to run away. He'd had a chance to be a part of a family on the surface a long time ago, and he'd passed it by. He'd known, again with that innate sense, that this world should really stay down here. And he didn't regret it. Too much.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that if he'd gone away then, this wouldn't have happened. That this was partly his fault. Obviously, those stupid birds had followed him to the surface last week for keeping them from stealing a triceratops mother's egg the day before. And the saber pack leader, a grumbly older carnivore that Buck was ambivalent toward, had paid the price meant for him.

He knew this was his fault. For as much as he hadn't wanted to come out with the whole truth when talking with everyone else, he knew. But he'd figured it would be better to get solid proof first and figure out what to do about it. He'd already sealed one hole to the surface, and he'd do it again if need be. But first, he wanted to know what was going on in his world. And to make whoever was responsible pay for it so that the surface animals, who were so forcefully, blissfully unaware of the world he'd tried to warn them about beneath their feet, would know they were safe.

He wasn't vengeful. But he also wasn't stupid. This wouldn't end with a heated conversation or a playful chase through the trees. It would end when either he or the dino birds were gone.

An all-encompassing rumbling reverberated through the trees a few yards to his left, and he ducked out of habit. There was no way that was a dino; he'd never heard anything like it. And it set him all the more on edge.

Looking around him to make sure that there weren't any little carnivores hiding among the rocks and waiting for a clear path to his turned back, Buck crept closer. There was another rumble that shook the ground, and he paused, feeling it deep in his bones.

"What under earth…" He popped his head above the rock he was crouched behind, skirting around it when he couldn't see anything on the other side.

There was some foliage growing close to the edges of the tree line, and between the rocks and tree trunks he didn't have a clear view of the main cluster of mud pools near the sheer cliff wall. He felt the next rumble coming from the vibration of the ground under his feet, and a boom sounded from directly in front of him.

Swallowing his fear, Buck charged forward, almost stumbling into a bubbling mud pool that appeared suddenly on the other side of the trees. Once he'd regained his momentary loss of balance, he glanced around him at the varying levels of mud pools that made up the surrounding area.

Then he looked up.

His heavy, matted-down fur felt like ice as fear zinged through him, and Buck took a numb step backwards.

"Blimey." He repeated again, voice almost a whisper.

000

"There! There!" Peaches could barely comprehend that someone had just shouted before three sabers appeared out of the trees, skidding to a stop in the snow as they cleared the tree line.

"Mom!"

"Dad!"

One of them lunged forward first, tumbling into Shira playfully. She wrapped her front paws around them, nuzzling and talking and laughing. One of the others giggled and hopped through the snow towards Diego, practically tackling him to the ground in a puff of flakes.

The last, a girl that looked just like Diego, glanced at Peaches and Julian with bright blue eyes before she trotted over to join her siblings.

Diego stood and reached out a paw, pulling her close and whispering something in her ear before licking the side of her face affectionately. Her serious expression melted into a warm smile, and she tucked her head up under his neck.

"Any trouble?" Shira asked, a kid leaning on each side of her.

"No trouble. But terrible weather." The boy said, getting to his feet. "Brian won't be happy."

"Brian isn't happy anyway." The girl near Diego said, sitting up as well. Her tone was sharp but lacked any kind of accusation. The other girl looked between her siblings in silence, frowning slightly.

Diego glanced at Peaches and Julian with a smile that was much different than his usual one. "Guys, we'd like you to meet Julian and Peaches."

All three of them turned, and Peaches tried not to flinch.

"Hi!" Julian bounced forward after a moment, waving at them enthusiastically. "It's nice to meet you!"

"Hey." The boy was looking between them, smiling in surprise and a little bit of confusion. "I'm Cooper."

"Sweet claws," Julian motioned with his trunk. "Very sharp."

Cooper hiccupped a surprised laugh and lifted one of his paws. "Thanks man!"

"It's nice to meet you." Peaches echoed when Cooper glanced her way next. He grinned back with a familiar cocky glint in his faint blue eyes. His body shape and facial features matched Diego's almost perfectly, but he was slightly smaller and his orange fur was muted by a blend of whites and greys.

Peaches' own smile felt a little more comfortable on her face as one of the girls bounded over. She was completely white except for her eyes, which mirrored Diego's green ones perfectly. She skidded to a stop unceremoniously just in front of Peaches and tilted her head up, saying with all the confidence of someone who was used to meeting new animals, "I'm Sidney."

"Sidney," Peaches repeated in surprise, staring down into her energetic, excited face and, a moment later, feeling an involuntary grin break over her own. She glanced at Diego. He met her eyes with a quiet smile.

"Yeah, but you can call her Sid if you want. Even if no one else does." Cooper said and, before Peaches could ask, motioned toward his other sister. "And that's…"

"Mayim." The other girl simply dipped her head in a calm nod when Peaches turned with a jerk. She'd rooted herself halfway between them and her parents and seemed content to watch from there.

"Hi." Peaches nodded back lamely, unsure if she should shrink under the other girl's gaze or make herself taller. Both seemed like frail options. This was, without a doubt, the one she'd heard so much about from Shira and Diego's neighbors. While she had a feeling some of it was just gossip, they were right about one thing: Mayim was _intense_.

"Peaches is Manfred's daughter; her and her husband just got married. They've been roaming." Shira said somewhere in the background, and Peaches was aware that Shira's eyes were on her. But she was too busy taking in the variety of surprised looks from all three of the kids.

"No way…" Cooper breathed as Sidney squealed happily and darted around Peaches to come up on her other side and rub at one of her legs affectionately. Peaches grinned down at her.

"Yep!" Julian swung is head in a nod as Cooper took a slight step closer to him, looked more closely at him. His blue eyes felt like being plunged into cold water when he caught Peaches'. An electrifying, exciting cold. And Peaches let herself relax, just slightly, as Julian added, "We came from the western coasts!"

"And you're staying here?" Mayim asked. She'd leaned back slightly, head tilted up with a composed air.

"We are." Peaches met her dispassionate stare. "We decided to stop when we heard your dad telling his story. They invited us to stay the night, and then with Merle…we just kind of didn't leave."

Not that they'd been planning to at any point anyway.

"Merle?" Mayim repeated and looked to her parents. Cooper and Sidney turned as well.

"Something attacked him near the northern boundary about a week ago. We don't know what it was and neither does he," Shira sighed, giving them a quick rundown of the situation. But then her attitude flipped and she gave Diego a cocky look. "Merle's staying with Brian right now while he rests up, and he asked your dad to take over for him in the meantime."

Cooper's loud snort cut off the first words of Mayim's next question, "…the pack angry or are they okay with it?"

"Nobody has broken rank yet." Diego shrugged but looked sheepish.

"Not that your father hasn't tried to make them angry enough for it." Shira gave him an amused look before turning back to the rest of them, "We're glad you guys are home. We know you can handle yourselves, but we were still worried."

" _Mom_." Cooper whined.

Mayim shook her head, frowning severely. "We're fine."

"It was lucky that Oliver and Lyle found Merle in time." Sidney added, glancing at her siblings and Peaches and Julian before continuing. "Is he going to be okay?"

"He better be," Diego muttered. Shira and Mayim both rolled their eyes.

"Merle has been pack leader…well, forever." Cooper said, shrugging, and turned to her and Julian, "As you well know, those guys don't go down very easily."

"But it can be done." Mayim countered evenly before Peaches had worked all the way through her surprise.

That was right…all three of them probably thought that she _knew_. That she had grown up hearing this story, as they obviously had. Her anger welled for a moment, and Peaches forced herself to measure out a calm exhale.

"Yeah, but nobody's stupid enough to go after Merle. Isaiah, sure, but not Merle." Cooper was saying as Mayim huffed and shook her head at his coltish grin.

"Isaiah's going to hear you say that…"

"And do what? Send your _ex_ after me?"

"I wouldn't stop him." Mayim narrowed her eyes as her brother's smile got even wider.

"We'd better head back." Shira said then, glancing at Diego in amusement. He just rolled his eyes and stood up.

All three kids bounded over to join them, and once Peaches and Julian moved to follow, they all set off for home.

"I see Cooper was doing most of the tracking this morning?" Shira asked as they walked through the trees.

"Yeah, he was." Mayim didn't sound impressed.

"Did you decide to give Sidney a break from doing everything?" Diego teased, bumping his son's shoulder with a grin.

"I know how to track." Cooper shot back in a well-worn tone of exasperation. He turned and walked backwards for a few paces so that he was facing her and Julian. "I _know_ how to track," he informed them seriously and then turned back around to catch up to Diego.

Sidney giggled, bouncing through the snow as if she was trying to see how much time she could spend in the air. To her left, Mayim looked faintly amused.

When Shira looked back and caught her eye, Peaches gave her a small smile. She hadn't necessarily sorted out her feelings about yesterday, but, in the end, she was glad to be included and grateful that Shira and Diego had asked them to come. Even if she wasn't sure where her and Julian were supposed to fit in all of this.

After a moment, Shira circled back so that the two of them were walking side by side as Cooper began a detailed explanation of a river system the three of them had stumbled upon a few days before.

"Are you guys still okay with us staying in your clearing? I didn't know if we needed to find somewhere else now that they're back." Peaches said after a couple seconds of silence between them.

"They have a small area within Merle's territory like we do." Shira said, and after a pause added, "Peaches, we want you guys to stay as long as you want, even once we're no longer doing things with the pack."

"Thanks, Shira. We appreciate that."

For a moment they just smiled at each other, and Peaches almost said it. _Shira, Julian and I have decided to stay here. Permanently._

But the sound of Cooper's laughter and Sidney's thrilled scream from up ahead as the two of them chased and tackled each other through the snow cut her off, and Peaches broke eye contact jerkily.

If Shira noticed, she didn't say anything, walking calmly next to her until Julian migrated back to join them. He'd been tagging along behind Mayim, who was busy watching the tussle in front of them with a frown.

"Thanks for coming with us this morning." Shira gave them both another smile.

"Thanks for inviting us." Peaches nodded as Shira grinned and walked slightly faster to join Diego. Ahead of them, Mayim was shouting at her siblings to knock it off. To Peaches' surprise, they complied, giggling together and nudging each other back and forth.

"Be nice to your brother and sister," Diego called.

Mayim gave the biggest eye roll Peaches had ever seen but didn't argue with him. Shira just laughed at her and nudged her husband who grumbled something too low for Peaches to hear.

"They're great," Julian said quietly in her ear.

To her surprise, Peaches thought the same thing. Mayim was strangely exactly how Peaches had imagined her – intimidating and dead serious – but she did feel better now. Cooper didn't seem to mind them being here, and Sidney obviously liked just about everyone and everything. Just like her own uncle, and Peaches smiled. "Yeah."

"Good call on coming this way." Julian grinned over at her.

" _We_ did do a good job." Peaches agreed, brushing some of the fur on the top of his head to the side with her trunk. His smile turned shy and a little lovestruck, and she let her trunk trail down the side of his face. "Wanna do some stargazing tonight?"

" _Yes_. Absolutely." He nodded his head up and down so fast it looked blurry. The first time he'd done that in front of her, Peaches had been afraid he was going to give himself a headache.

She smiled.

They'd come back into more familiar territory now and paused to talk about their plans for the rest of the day. Shira was saying something about heading to the kids' clearing first so that they could spend some time together before her and Diego needed to get back to the pack.

After a quick, understanding glance at Julian, Peaches walked over to stand next to Diego. For a moment, they watched as Cooper and Mayim began an argument that had him laughing and her growling. Sidney was cuddled up next to Shira, and they were whispering to each other and nuzzling. "You named your daughter after Uncle Sid."

"It was actually Shira's idea." Diego said and glanced at her with a smile that probably wasn't supposed to be sad but still was. "But yes, we did."

Peaches let the warm silence stretch for a moment before saying, "We'll see you guys later, okay?"

"Are you sure?" Diego looked up at her again, surprised and worried.

"Yeah, you guys need some time alone with your kids," she nodded encouragingly. "We'll be by in a day or two."

"Okay." He didn't sound sure but didn't argue further. "Thank you for coming this morning." Diego added seriously, looking first at Peaches and then to Julian.

"Of course." Peaches whispered, glancing back at her husband, at his big smile. She nodded at Diego once before turning quietly and reaching out for Julian's trunk. He reached out too, and they walked silently into the trees together.

000

Peaches had been asleep for about an hour now, and for as much as he wanted to do the same, Julian just couldn't seem to drop off.

Instead he stared out into the darkness and tried not to think.

They'd laid on their backs and watched the stars for a while once it got dark enough. Shira and Diego's clearing had an excellent view of the sky, and they whispered back and forth quietly as they watched the endless blue night above them.

Despite being stressed out about meeting Diego and Shira's kids, Peaches was happier than Julian had ever seen her, and he was happy too. Happier than he even knew it was possible to feel. And after their conversation earlier, right when they'd gotten back, Julian hoped she felt better about their new acquaintances too.

"I just don't know how to…to be around them." Peaches had complained half-heartedly, guilt watering down her tone as they face each other in the clearing. They'd just returned from meeting them, and Julian was still reeling a little from his own nerves.

But he knew Peaches felt worse.

"It's gonna be okay," he answered with his best encouraging voice, swiping at the snow with his trunk to clear space for the pine branches they'd been plucking as they walked. He let the silence stretch for half a minute, looking up when his wife sighed quietly. "Hey."

Peaches looked up, the misery she'd been able to hide from Shira and Diego playing across her face.

"We'll take it one day at a time."

"Will we?" she whispered.

"Yeah. It's always hard to find your way into a group when you go someplace new." Julian smiled, letting his words sink in and relaxing slightly as Peaches' expression slowly changed from dejected to knowing.

Finally, she gave him a small smile. "You're right. I know you are."

They'd worked together to put the pine boughs down after that pronouncement, and the night settled into a vast calm as the sky darkened incrementally around the stars. They'd lain, staring up at it for a long time in hushed, easy love.

Now, he glanced at his wife sleeping next to him, the tufts of fur on the top of her head falling down over her face, her closed eyelids. She breathed softly, calmly, and he wished – not for the first time – that they'd grown up as childhood friends. He really liked her life, even if he didn't think telling her that would be a good idea.

His own family was heavy. Not like Manny's past – Julian didn't quite know how to look a tragedy like that in the face. But it still felt like he was always carrying around the ones he'd left. No matter how hard he tried, no matter where he was, they always seemed to show up. His mind saw them, heard them, told him what they weren't able to say themselves in person: _Don't get too comfortable anywhere._

He'd leaped forward without them and decided he could do this by himself, then. And here he was. Lying awake at night and telling himself over and over again that everything was going to be okay. That if he wanted to, he could open up to Peaches and they could talk about it. He could tell her.

But watching her sleep next to him reminded him of where they were. Of all that had happened since he'd set off that morning years ago. And here he was, still worrying about what his family would think if they saw him now. Jeez, he could just about kick himself sometimes. He'd met someone, become part of a family, got married, become part of _another_ family, and it seemed like everywhere he turned here someone was always ready to say hello or invite him somewhere with them.

He wanted to enjoy this. He didn't want to be angry or frustrated or sad. And he didn't know if he could take Peaches' reaction if she ever truly found out. Because the truth was, she'd loved him enough to commit to him. And it was enough.

He'd spend the rest of his life telling himself that until it was.

* * *

I went back and forth on how much I wanted to say about this, and I decided that getting too far into the weeds isn't really necessary or beneficial. So I'll just say this: I know not everyone likes _The_ _Big Bang Theory_ , and that's totally fine. The show had its problems and I understand why it drew criticism, but I also think that there were some things the show did really, really well. That being said, I'm mostly just borrowing a couple of names and will be making some occasional references (as well as references to other shows and movies), so if you're not a fan of _BBT_ , don't panic.

Anyway, for those who haven't seen the show, one name was borrowed from an actor and one from a character. Mayim Bialik (Amy in the show) has such a beautiful name, and I felt that it fit this character so well. Cooper just kind of became…well, Cooper. I honestly played around with finding a different name for him, but nothing fit quite the same. And Sidney actually used to be named Penny in a slightly different version of this story. But I love the idea of Diego naming one of his kids after someone who changed his life. (For those who _have_ seen the show, my characters don't correspond, personality-wise, to the _BBT_ characters/actors. I just love their names.)

And, just to be clear, because I'd be thinking the same thing right about now, "Mayim and Sidney" versus "Manfred and Sid" was not intentional on my part, the initials just ended up working out that way.

Until next time!


	18. Chapter 18

He was starting to think this was a bad idea.

It was midday, and Diego knew he couldn't go any farther.

His shoulder felt like it was reinjuring itself with every step, and the deep cold that had moved into this thick forest over the last few days was cutting through his fur. He felt it in a way he hadn't up north, probably because he wasn't on the edge of delirium anymore and his injury had healed enough for him to assess just how bad it really was.

And it was. Bad.

Soto's claws had barely made it through his fur during their fight, and he was used to stray scratches from mock fighting that took a too-violent turn. It had happened so often, he'd stopped noticing it at all. But that bite was something else. It was, unmistakably, a kill move. And even if it wouldn't have taken Manfred down immediately, it would have effectively ended the fight.

That moment had played in his mind more and more over the last couple of days. Annoyingly, Diego still didn't regret it. And he glared ahead of him as a now-familiar wave of emotions hit him.

He was quickly learning that the bone-deep pain in his shoulder was the least of his worries. The constant tracking made him feel good, in a desperate sort of way, but it also gave him too much time to think. And he'd passed denial more miles back than he could count.

He'd reassured himself in the aftermath of the snowstorm that he wasn't _lost_. And again the day he'd left Nate's back behind. He'd left that morning feeling confident, foolishly, and now, a week and a half on, he knew that he was lost. There was no other way to describe the miserable feeling that shadowed his peripheral vision and lurked between the trees and behind rocks and ghosted over the snow. And it had only gotten worse in the last few days. Before, he was still figuring everything out and trying to plot out a strategy. Now the migration was close, he'd been smelling it and readjusting his course in answer for the last couple of days. And now that he'd found it, his thoughts kept turning to the topics he didn't want to think about.

Soto had wanted to kill an innocent baby. And Diego had almost helped him.

Diego had chased the child's mother over that waterfall.

He'd involved Manfred in the Half Peak plan instead of just finding a way to get the baby away from him and disappearing.

That was wrong. Wasn't it? The human leader had killed half their pack and, worse, there was the horror of them using his packmates' own fur and _wearing_ it, and…the baby hadn't been involved, though. And wasn't it, in the end, the same thing as what their own pack did to herbivores?

They were no better than the humans. In fact, there was something about it that felt worse to him. And he suspected that the twin ideas of revenge and honor weren't really twins after all. And maybe his whole life and been a li…

He stopped that thought every time it came up.

Because he already knew the answer. He _felt_ it. And he didn't want to listen to himself think it because it meant that he really was lost. And his instincts, the ones that just kind of knew things, had been right, again. And just because he didn't like the path he was following didn't mean that it was objectively wrong.

For as much as he wanted to get back to his old self, and had tried these last few blurry days of tracking, he knew it wasn't the same. Every thought, every decision, felt strange. And his usual composed attitude felt fragile.

There was a very distinct possibility that getting out of his pack had been the real rescue in all of this. If he'd stayed through the planned bloodbath at Half Peak, and if Soto had been allowed to go through with killing the baby and herbivores, then Diego would have stayed there permanently. He would have spent his life in that pack. And that just felt so…unnerving. So much so that he often found himself letting it burn out in the background while he ignored it and waited for it to break down to embers again. Without those two getting involved, there wasn't anywhere else from him to go. If it wasn't for them, he'd be actually, truly alone. Except, he wouldn't be, because he never would have left in the first place and realized that was the case.

Diego had never realized he was so _unhappy_ before. It was a bottomless feeling, much like the snowstorm's whiteout panic. The feeling of aloneness that seemed to whisper that even when he'd picked up their trail, he still wasn't going to feel better. Why would Manfred and Sid understand any of this? That was the thought that, even more, he tried desperately to keep himself from thinking.

Because if it was true, then he was truly out of options.

Most of his waking hours were wrapped up in fighting with himself, back and forth, about who he was and where he was going from here. And somehow, "finding 'his' herd" didn't make his conscience shut up.

He honestly had no idea what was going on inside of his mind, and it scared him.

While he wasn't one of those sabers that believed that sabers didn't feel fear (although he'd probably say it as a front if anyone asked), he did know that he absolutely could not let it rule him. And it was getting close. He could feel it. And the harder he fought to push it aside and focus on anything else – like the relentless pain in his shoulder, the more he wondered if it was somehow winning for just that reason.

Diego collapsed into the snow and growled to himself. He'd been so caught up in thinking, in negating, again, that he'd forgotten about the fact that his body had been telling him for the last two hours that he needed to stop and rest.

Sid was right, he was a tiger. But laying there in the snow, he had to admit to himself that he honestly didn't know if he could lick this.

000

For a day they could totally sleep in – and definitely should – Peaches was annoyed when she woke up to see early morning light streaming weakly through the thin tops of the evergreens. And she was even more annoyed that she was unmistakably, unfortunately, wide awake.

Trying not to shift too much, while knowing it was useless because she wasn't going back to sleep anyway, Peaches stretched her trunk out and rolled her shoulders to start easing out some of the stiffness.

Stargazing was fun and romantic and all that, but it usually ended with her falling asleep on her back and at some point toppling to her side in her sleep, and she could _always_ tell the next morning.

Sure enough, she could _definitely_ feel it this morning. And just as she was contemplating whether or not to stretch further or assert her dominance over her lack of sleepiness and curl up again and lay there feeling angry, she felt Julian shift slightly next to her.

He tended to move more in his sleep, and she froze, waiting. If he was still out and just shifting position, she didn't want to disturb him. But then he moved some more and lifted his head and stared at her with a foggy expression. She grinned at her husband. "Hey."

"Hey," he whispered back, the end of the word trailing out into a huge yawn. He blinked sleepily for a couple of seconds before smiling. "How'd you sleep?"

"Great." She answered, pausing for a moment – because they both knew what was coming – and then added, "Just wish I could have gotten more of it."

Julian snickered and blinked some more. Oh no, it didn't look like he'd slept all that well. But his motto had always been socialize first and sleep…well, last. So she wasn't surprised when he did a big stretch of his own and shifted away enough that they could face each other without straining their necks.

"So what do you want to do today?" He rubbed at his eyes with his trunk, yawning again.

"To be honest, I think I need to keep looking," Peaches breathed, and at his questioning, concerned look, added, "I'm not going to let Shira scare me away from this. If she has a problem with it, she can come right out and say it."

"What if she tells Diego?"

"Fine by me." Peaches retorted, even if she knew it was mostly a lie. She wasn't the only one who would suffer the consequences from this.

But, as always, Julian was ready to go trunk to trunk with her. "Tell me how to help then."

Peaches couldn't help herself; she broke into a smile at his earnest expression. In a quiet, blink-and-you'd-miss-it way, Julian really wasn't afraid of anything. She gave him a seductive smile. "Smart, handsome, and down for sneaking? I really did get the whole package."

"Oh, you definitely did." He nodded back, a gloating glint replacing the earnestness, and she laughed as he reached up to try and grab at her hair with his trunk. She dodged, bringing her own trunk up to guard, and they resumed their ongoing game of play fighting and trying to pull the other's hair.

After a few minutes it all dissolved down into giggling, and they cuddled together, laughing breathlessly and lazily twining trunks.

"So…truce?" Julian finally whispered. Because he knew Peaches wasn't going to.

She pretended to think for a fraction of a second and then tightened her grip on his trunk and pulled him closer suddenly so that they were physically face-to-face. "Sure."

"This really is your favorite way of talking to guys, isn't it?" Julian's brown eyes crinkled a little.

"What?"

"Well, first it was Ethan. Although, you did kind of land on top of him that time, so I suppose I should feel lucky you aren't crushing me right now…"

"Shut up!" She let go of him, shoving his trunk away with an embarrassed, angry smile. A blurry image of the air rushing past her fur a moment before she collided with her first crush. The mortifying realization that she'd just body checked the most attractive mammoth she'd never seen. Well, the most attractive one at the time. Peaches focused back on her husband. "I never should have told you that."

"Probably not." He grinned back, mouth curving up in an evil smile. It somehow looked harmless on him, but Peaches still narrowed her eyes so that he wouldn't know how absolutely adorable he looked at the moment. "Just promise I'm the only one you'll be pummeling from now on, okay?"

"Oh, you can count on it." She answered in a too-sweet voice, and, seeing an opportunity, swiped her trunk up and yanked on a tuft of his fur. She laughed at his surprised and increasingly annoyed expression. "But just for the record, I can pummel whoever I want."

Their trash talking technically never really stopped, and within a few minutes it escalated until Peaches was screaming with laughter and Julian was huffing the word "no" over and over again in answer to Peaches' question of whether or not he would have dated one of the other mammoths if they'd been around, when there was slight movement in the trees to their left and Mayim stepped from the trees. She paused as their conversation quickly died. "Good morning."

"Good morning!" Julian cried immediately, and a moment later, rolled away from Peaches a little so that they were no longer sitting so closely.

Mayim looked between them. "We thought we'd stop by. Unless this is a bad time?"

"Uh, no, of course not." Peaches was suddenly very, very conscious of the way she was laying. How her voice sounded. The fact that she existed at all.

Mayim nodded and padded a few steps farther into the clearing as there was more movement and voices behind her. A second later, Cooper bounded into the clearing, lithely passing his sister to take a seat on her left. He smirked at them. "Oh, good. We were hoping you'd be awake."

A moment later, Sidney tumbled from the trees, landing with an "oof" and a puff into a shallow bank of snow. She laid there for a second before standing up enough to throw herself back down into it and proceeded to kick up a bunch of clumps.

"Sid!" Cooper yelled, holding one paw up to shield himself from the flying snow.

Her head appeared above the drift a moment later, and she winced when she saw him shake the snow off. "Sorry."

"Aren't you hanging out with your parents today?" Peaches asked, looking between the three of them.

"Dad and Brian are having a meeting." Mayim answered first, shooting Cooper a glare a split second later. He burst into laughter.

"You can always just…you know…show up," he offered in between breaths.

"Mayim wants to be there." Sidney stood up, swaying dizzily. "Since she's one of the leaders."

"You're a pack leader?" Julian yelped and then squinted at her. "That is. _So. Cool_."

At that, Mayim looked honestly, genuinely flattered, and the contrast between that and her usual serious expression was surprising, and for a moment, Peaches wondered if maybe Mayim didn't really understand how intimidating she was.

"Yeah, but this is our pack." Cooper added. "It's just the three of us."

"I'm second in command." Sidney added.

"We get a lot of flak for it. Well, she gets a lot of flak for it." Cooper waved his paw at his sister. "Sid and I don't really care."

"Neither do I." Mayim had straightened up again, any vulnerability gone.

" _True_." Cooper drug out the word, and a _look_ passed between all three of the siblings. He turned back to Peaches and Julian. "Anyway, that's why Mayim is upset today."

"I'm not _upset_." Mayim retorted.

"My family is a herd. Well, our family." Peaches gave Julian a quick smile, "And we're all related. You know, more or less."

"Exactly." Sidney grinned.

"Are you sure that it's okay you're here?" Peaches tried again. "I don't want to take you away from Shira."

Cooper waved a paw. "No, it's fine. Mom's babysitting the pack right now, and we talked for a _really_ long time last night."

"And we wanted to come and see you!" Sidney added.

"We did." Mayim agreed. "Mom and Dad told us a little bit about how you got here, but we mostly talked about our time away. How are you liking the area?"

"It's great. It's just…everything about it is great." It was getting a little bit easier to meet Mayim's eyes. Even if Peaches' ability to form words was still clawing its way back to coherent.

"Good." If Mayim noticed, or cared, the detached expression never slipped. She even filled in the following awkward silence without so much as a difference in tone. "And you stopped because of Half Peak right? That's what Mom and Dad made it sound like. We didn't talk too much about that part."

Well that wasn't surprising. Peaches had no trouble imagining Diego skimming over their first night in the area with Shira rolling her eyes in the background. "Yeah, he was telling his story and we stopped to listen."

"Because you recognized it."

"Um, no." Peaches shifted uncomfortably, "I actually didn't know."

Mayim's eyebrow quirked and Cooper blinked in confusion. But Sidney trotted over and placed herself between the two of them and rolled onto her back so that she was looking upwards.

"So that's why you guys stayed, right?" Her head cocked to one side.

"Definitely. Plus, I've never been here before, and this is a super cool area." Julian answered excitedly, then sobered a moment later. Peaches could tell he was trying really hard not to glance at her. They both knew that telling Shira and Diego's kids that they were going to settle down here before they actually told _Shira and Diego_ was probably not a good idea.

"When you say 'you didn't know'…" Cooper trailed off, returning to the original topic.

"About any of it." Peaches shook her head at him.

"I…" He blinked a few times. "Why…?"

"I don't know." Peaches said before his question could go any farther. They didn't need to waste time talking about this because there was nothing to talk about. At least, nothing useful that she could tell them. Her father had made sure of that.

"At least you're here now." Sidney's green eyes flitted between her and Julian.

"Yeah." Peaches said carefully as all three sabers looked to her for confirmation. There was a second of awkward silence that felt like it stretched on forever before she finally added, "It's fine, really. Your dad told me the whole story."

Sidney's immediate acceptance of this answer seemed to have the same force as Cooper's dubious eyebrow raise. Against her better judgement, Peaches glanced over at Mayim to check for her reaction. When their eyes met, the saber just nodded. Her expression didn't change, but Peaches knew Mayim understood, at least on some level, that there was so much more to this. And that Peaches didn't want to talk about it.

"Well, then it's a good thing you're here." Cooper, for all his emotional abandon, seemed to have also arrived at the conclusion that this was a sorer subject than Peaches wanted to let on, and his haughty smirk returned. "It's nice to not be the only weirdoes around."

Sidney giggled and Mayim's immediate scoff only made him smile wider as she added, "We tend to be the odd ones out around here. Our family in general, but also the three of us as a pack. Apparently, a small pack like ours is a little too strange." She finished this with a shrug and a glance at the two of them.

"Like our family." Peaches echoed with an unwilling smile.

"A sloth and…two mammoths, right?" Cooper asked.

"And possums." Julian nodded, and, upon the sudden blank confusion, added, "You know, Peaches' uncles. On her mom's side."

"My mother got lost in a snowstorm when she was really little," Peaches added because, based on their reactions, she could tell they still didn't know what was going on. She hadn't said much to Diego or Shira about them – other than the fact that they drove Dad absolutely nuts. In fact, after that first story about Half Peak, the four of them hadn't been able to talk about their lives much further. That information, of course, included the existence of the triplets. Now, Peaches added. "Mom was too young to really understand what was going on, and she was found and raised by a possum mother. She spent most of her life thinking she was a possum until she met my dad."

Cooper winced. "Dang, I was just going to accept the possums no questions asked. I'm sorry about your mom though."

"Thanks, but it's okay. She always says she's had a great life. Guess you can't miss what you never really knew." Which was not _at_ _all_ true. The last month had been a testament to that.

"So this must feel like home for you." Sidney rolled over and got her paws under her before taking a few steps and flopping back into the snow.

Mayim and Cooper didn't react to this, so Peaches just added, "It does. Uh, I've actually been doing a lot of exploring in the area."

"That's _right_ ," Cooper said suddenly. "You guys were roaming. You should come with us to check out the cliffs!"

"What are those?" Julian asked excitedly.

"It's this big mountain thing we found, just east of here. You'd probably run into it if you kept going. We're going back in a few days to explore it more.

"They're cliffs Coop." Sidney's muffled voice said from where she was face-down in the snow.

"Yes we want to come." Julian blurted, "Yes with, like, a million S's."

"Great!" Sidney rolled over, wiggling her back into the ground.

"Uh, sure." Peaches nodded, acutely aware that her brain hadn't quite caught up with the conversation. "It…sounds fun. Thanks."

"We should probably go find Aunt Claire before she comes looking for _us_ ," Mayim said after a moment of silence, glancing at the sun's position in the sky with what was probably her version of nervousness. It still sounded more confident than Peaches usually felt, though, so what did she know?

Cooper and Sidney were immediately on their feet.

"Yeah, this was fun guys, but, uh, I don't want to die today. So…" Cooper waved at her and Julian as the three of them made for the tree line in the direction of the main clearing.

"We'll see you in a few days." Mayim said as her siblings stepped into the trees ahead of her, "Let us know if you need anything."

"Great! We will." Julian assured her. As soon as they were gone, he turned to Peaches. "I think they like us."


	19. Chapter 19

Unfortunately for all of us, I have recently been attempting to get back into crocheting and have basically spiraled down the textile rabbit hole from there. *Over a month's worth of apologies*

* * *

Bodhi knew that Manfr… _Manny_ and Sid were still angry at Diego. Everyone did. It was such common knowledge that after he'd figured out where he was and _who_ had found him, he'd been shocked that they'd bothered to help him at all. Diego had been _very_ clear about how angry they were after he'd told them the truth, and Bodhi had chosen not to bring it up those first few nights since they already seemed to be on edge with him around.

But still not as on edge as they should have been, and it became clear rather quickly that they had every intention of not only helping him but making sure he wasn't going to go off and do something stupid. Which was infuriating. And made him feel guilty for accidently intruding.

Now Bodhi walked ahead of them, trying to think through how he wanted to handle this.

He hadn't thought much of it when Sid showed up that first night and they'd indicated that this was their herd. Brian and Merle's territory was such a mix, he'd gotten used to herbivores sharing space. So what if these animals had banded together and called themselves a herd? With an extra mammoth and possums that had clearly joined them after the events up north, it hadn't even occurred to him. Not even Sid's name had tipped him off at first. He knew the story of course, and he knew their names, but it wasn't something that was often on his mind. It took him until the morning of the second day to realize who they were.

It was getting close to nightfall, and the possums had been sent off to look for a place to bed down for the night. Bodhi had tried to get the mammoths to let him do it himself since none of them knew what they were doing (the constant remarking on geological features and general anxiety made _that_ obvious), but they'd refused. Apparently scoping things out was something that the possums were "good at" and so they'd skittered off into the darkness together, laughing and whipping through pine needles.

"They're just going to screw around." Bodhi could tell, the longer they walked, that he definitely wasn't anywhere close to feeling okay, and even though he didn't like how whiny he sounded, he couldn't help himself.

"We know," came Ellie's response, and when he glanced back at her, she grinned at him. "But they've been riding all day and they'll be able to find something faster."

"I'm not tired."

"I know," Her sweet response came. "But the offer is still open regardless."

Bodhi grumbled, turned back around, and walked a few steps farther ahead, trying to block out his thoughts with the sound of Manfred, _ugh_ Manny, he was _never_ going to get this, and Sid arguing about whether or not Sid should be allowed to ride on his back the next day too. The mammoth kept repeating that the sloth should be perfectly rested by now, and their bickering escalated as Bodhi led them along the twins' route in the deepening darkness.

They weren't as far as he wanted them to be, and Bodhi was hoping that if he could convince them to get a move on before sunrise tomorrow, they could make up some time. But he was also finding it more and more difficult to tell them straight that they were going too slow. Or that he didn't want a ride. Or that the more he thought about it, the less likely their children would be anywhere near where he had possibly seen them. That he knew things about them that they would probably prefer he didn't know.

They'd been travelling for a few days now, and the dynamic that crept in that first morning had settled into a comfortable routine. That was the last thing Bodhi wanted.

"We found a place!" Eddie reappeared from the trees in front of them suddenly. He motioned impatiently and turned to disappear back the way he'd come. Bodhi picked up his own pace a little to follow, trying to adjust in spots the mammoths wouldn't be able to get through. He hadn't accounted for having to constantly think about the route in this way, and that was probably _also_ slowing them down.

They arrived at the spot a few minutes later, and Bodhi allowed himself to stop for a second and let his aching muscles breathe. Ellie and Manny walked past him, looking around at what the possums had chosen.

It was a small clearing, so space would be tight for all of them, but it was also well-hidden, and Bodhi wanted to travel as anonymously as possible. (A "herd" of just two mammoths would be a welcome target for any packs they passed, and he had absolutely no interest in finding out who would win). And, apparently, the possums would take any chance they got to go on a mission. He suspected that they knew more and were smarter than they often let on.

Now, they grinned at him, basking in his slight nod of approval as Ellie called to them that it was time for bed. She settled down as well opposite Bodhi, snuggling the bulk of her body into the ground and looking around one more time. "Guys, get down here!" She shouted a second later as the volume in the trees escalated. The possums, surprisingly, came tearing down a second later. Well, Crash did. Eddie pretty much fell, glaring at his brother as he stood up and dusted himself off. As soon as Crash wasn't looking, he launched himself on top of him and they resumed wrestling.

Ellie obviously had some kind of a threshold that she used to decide when to intervene, and now that they were on solid ground, she let them claw and topple over each other, turning to look at Bodhi where he'd taken a seat and was busy listening to the background noises and noting the scents so he'd know if any new ones came within smelling distance. "So, you said that Brian is pretty busy. Could we talk to Merle if we need to?"

Bodhi came back to himself – everything seemed to be in order in the surrounding area – and flicked one ear at the thought. "Merle can be counted on to leave the mammoth herd alone as much as he can. If they do go through there, I'm sure Merle will forcefully not notice."

"That sounds like Manny." Crash smirked at the mammoth, and Manfred narrowed his eyes slightly.

They had _not_ taken the unorthodox arrangement between the mammoth herd and saber pack as calmly as Bodhi had thought they would.

"There are two leaders?" Manfred had questioned after they settled down around Sid's fire on the first night. Ellie was confirming that Brian was the leader whose area they were headed toward and Bodhi had offhandedly mentioned that it was actually Brian _and_ Merle but they'd probably end up talking to Brian.

"Brian is the leader of the mammoth herd and Merle is the leader of the saber pack. They share the territory."

And that's how he'd figured out that they absolutely _did_ find this information to be a big deal.

"The sabers in Merle's pack only eat fish." Bodhi had added at the sudden outburst of questions, feeling taken off guard himself and trying to calm them down at the same time. "The area is a mix of animals, actually, much like where you guys live. There's this huge lake, and there's more than enough food for the pack and a few other carnivores who live there. It's been this way for a long time."

"Do they get along?" Ellie had asked, looking like she was struggling to comprehend the sudden atmosphere change just as much as the information itself.

"Yeah, they get along just fine. As far as I know, there haven't ever been problems. The sabers who live in Merle's pack are there because they want to be; they know the rules, and they abide by them. To be honest, they all like the arrangement." But he'd caught the glance Manfred and Sid gave each other off to the side. His ears went back in apology as he looked around at all of them. "I'm…I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. You don't have anything to worry about though."

"Sweetie, it's okay." Ellie was quick with reassurances, but for a moment, it hadn't made him feel better. Because her and the possums' reactions weren't the ones he was worried about. And that silent look between the mammoth and sloth had told him everything he needed to know about the state of their feelings about Diego. And as he tentatively filled in more details, he was fairly certain they were starting to pick up on what he _wasn't_ saying.

Now, Manny (ha!) just rolled his eyes dismissively and looked around their current clearing. "We can worry about this when we get closer. Let's just get some sleep."

"Agreed." Bodhi said, trying his hardest not to limp as he made his way over to his impromptu spot next to Sid. The sloth had plopped down contentedly when Manfred – _dang it, that's what he got for getting cocky_ – had relieved him of fire duties (it was too windy and too warm tonight), and Bodhi laid down a few feet away from him.

Sid pretended not to notice, going back to trying too hard to go to sleep. The sloth still hadn't quite warmed up to him, and truth be told, he didn't mind. They had every right not to trust him. In fact, he didn't _want_ them to trust him.

Diego had searched for a long time – years – and come up with nothing. And Bodhi had slipped, literally, right into their lives by accident.

Based on their lack of acknowledgement or mention of it, Bodhi figured they didn't want to discuss Diego or anything that happened at Half Peak. That was fine with him personally. But if they couldn't find their children and had to go to Brian, they'd probably end up running into each other. For as much as Bodhi didn't want to push them into talking when they didn't want to, he also knew that this was something they needed to sort out before they got to that point.

While a part of him worried that this was just setting up an even worse situation and Bodhi would have to watch the look in Diego's eyes when these two definitively reassured him that there wasn't a place for him in this herd, Bodhi wasn't going to betray Manfred and Sid. Their herd had taken him in, and Bodhi wanted them to at least have a chance to sort out their feelings and feel like they had some control in the situation. And he knew Diego wouldn't want them to be blindsided either because the last thing the other saber wanted was to hurt them again. In fact, he knew that Diego couldn't imagine anything worse than accidently causing them more pain. So his heart would break at the inevitable glaring and avoidance, but he'd understand and wouldn't push it.

And Bodhi knew that he'd have to go along with it all no matter what he did or didn't feel. It wasn't his story or his business, and getting too involved – too _close_ – with them now was only going to make everything that much worse.

So the sooner they got this cleared up, the better.

000

When they stopped for a short break midafternoon, Bodhi didn't allow himself to stop and rest for long.

As soon as Manfred made his way into the trees in search of something to eat and it was clear the rest of the herd would be staying around the small frozen marsh they'd stopped to drink at, Bodhi stifled a groan as he pushed himself up. Sometimes it felt like he was actually getting _worse_.

A quick glance at the others told him they hadn't noticed the wince he hadn't been able to keep off his face, and he walked slowly after the mammoth.

Manfred had only gone a few yards, stopping near a clump of densely growing young evergreens, and he glanced over at Bodhi once as he shoved a trunkful of the broad leaves into his mouth. Bodhi nodded at the mammoth in greeting.

He had insisted that they get up before the sun rose this morning. To his surprise, they'd actually agreed, and he'd been spared from pretending to himself that he wouldn't have felt bad if they'd complained. Now it was late afternoon, and they were all dragging, himself included.

"I hope you're eating." Man-Manny broke the silence, and Bodhi was so surprised by the comment, he couldn't bring himself to say anything for a long moment.

"Yes…I am." He finally answered carefully. He'd been trying anyway. But the stress of being in the middle of all this was distracting, and he'd held off going after anything that could seriously hurt him if his focus slipped. Manny could obviously hear the lie in the gray space of that statement and didn't look pleased. But Bodhi was here to have a different awkward conversation, and it was time to have it so that he could get back to hunting successfully. "But I wanted to talk to you more about Brian and Merle's territory. Just so you're not, um, surprised."

He raised one eyebrow. "Have you seen this herd?"

"Yes, and that's the reason why I wanted to talk to you."

He wasn't always sure what to say to Manny, and the mammoth seemed to be tolerating his presence so far with exactly the same attitude Bodhi had always imagined he had with Diego.

"Like I said," Bodhi went on before Manfred could change his mind. "It's a mix of a lot of different animals. Most of them have migrated there over the years…ones that you…you know… _know_ and may not necessarily get along with. Particularly sabers."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Manny scoffed, looking down at him with an expression that clearly said, _Is that it?_

Bodhi hesitated for half a second, just long enough to gather his courage and conveniently ignore how much harder this was turning out to say than he'd thought. He'd been hoping a not-so-subtle hint would be enough to clue the mammoth in and get an answer without completely opening the topic. But if Manfred suspected, he clearly wanted the information outright to confirm it. Not that Bodhi could blame him after everything that had happened. Now, he wished that he'd been practicing this in the few moments of silence on the trail or falling asleep at night. Just so it wouldn't feel like he'd already gotten this wrong… "I know. About everything. You. Sid. How you were migrating and the waterfall and the baby and the lava and…I just...I know who you are. And I wanted you to know that _before_ we get there. I don't want you to…well…walk in blind like you did, um, up north. Because you guys will probably run into each other, and…"

"It's fine." Manny cut him off.

"It…is?"

Manfred looked almost amused as Bodhi stared up at him in momentary shock. Or maybe he was just putting up a front. His mouth twitched slightly to one side. "We'll deal with it."

"Oh, um, okay." He hadn't known how Manfred would react to this news, and he even more so didn't know how _he_ felt about the mammoth's calm answer. "I wanted you to know, though. And well… if you wanted, I was thinking that I can set up a meeting for you."

"A meeting?" Manny's eyebrow raised again, but he didn't say anything else, and Bodhi decided to go ahead and not take that as an explicit "no."

"Yes. And, that being said…if you want to talk…I think that it might go better than you think. I would be more than happy to set it up and even…stick around? Only if you wanted me to, of course." Or he could run far away from there to avoid the horrible awkwardness and feelings. At least on Diego's end.

"We don't need a formal meeting." Manfred didn't even pause, and Bodhi couldn't stop the surprise and other, more confusing emotions from avalanching over him as Manfred added, "I don't want to get mixed up in anything there. We've had enough drama over the years as it is. We just need to find our daughter and make sure that she's safe."

"I understand," Bodhi answered quietly, trying to get ahold of himself as Manfred stared him down calmly. There was no hesitation on his face, and Bodhi focused on that as he collected his thoughts enough to nod. "Then I'll handle that side of things if need be. You don't have to worry. I'm here to help you and Sid and your family. I want you to know that."

"I appreciate it." Manny nodded, obviously surprised, but Bodhi could tell that he believed him. And that he meant what he'd just said.

"We should be going soon." Bodhi took a few steps away from him, turning to head back to the marsh without waiting for Manfred to say anything else. "I'll go get everyone ready so we can move on."

It felt like he was running as he walked away, but he didn't care.

It was a no. He'd said no. And now it was over and Bodhi could get back to hunting and stop thinking about all of this. Things were better now. He didn't have to worry anymore.

000

The conversation with Bodhi earlier had definitely taken a weird turn.

Although, to be honest, Manny had half been expecting this. He kept an eye on him for the rest of the day, shaking his head occasionally when the saber stepped a certain way to compensate for his still-healing injuries. Bodhi had spent the better part of the last week running himself down and unsuccessfully trying to hide it from them, and it was obvious that he was slowly breaking from exhaustion. His agitated, mostly incoherent rambling earlier was a dead giveaway.

Manny made a mental note to have a conversation with Ellie about figuring out how to force him into riding for the next couple of days.

* * *

I have been waiting to write the Bodhi/Manny conversation since this fic started. I knew it would take me forever to pin down because they both have to walk away satisfied and completely unaware that they've just gotten two very different messages from the conversation.

If you haven't noticed, I'm total trash for the miscommunication-leads-to-everyone-thinking-this character-is dead-but-they're-actually-NOT trope. I'm enjoying this drama immensely, and I make no apologies. After all, they're tropes for a reason.

Field trip to the cliffs next time, kiddos.


End file.
